Great Night

Chris Adrian

Apr 2011 · HarperCollins Canada

About this ebook

One Midsummer’s Eve, 2008, three people, each on the run from a failed relationship, are trapped in San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park on their way to a party. And on this night, something awful is happening in the faerie kingdom. In a fit of sadness over the end of her marriage and the death of her adopted son, Titania has set loose an ancient menace, and the chaos that ensues upends and threatens the lives of mortals and immortals alike. The three heartbroken lovers become lost in the park, under the park and within the memories of the people they lost or drove away, and each will remember through the course of the night that this is not the first time their lives have been touched by magic. Suffering an all-too-human despair, and in thrall to an old enemy, Titania puts all the resources of her kingdom at the disposal of a homeless man who thinks he can bring down the sinister mayor of San Francisco by staging a musical production of Soylent Green. Before the night ends the mortals are caught, the show is staged and Titania discovers, at great cost, a way to undo the menace she’s set free, if not to undo her grief.

About the author

CHRIS ADRIAN is the author of Gob’s Grief, The Children’s Hospital and A Better Angel, which was selected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review. Adrian, a fellow in pediatric hematology and oncology at the University of California and a Ph.D. student at Harvard Divinity School, was also selected as one of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” to watch.