The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios [With Earphones]

Here are four unforgettable stories by Yann Martel, the New York Times best-selling author of Life of Pi. In the exquisite title novella, a very young man dying of AIDS joins his friend in fashioning a story of the Roccamatio family of Helsinki, set against the yearly march of the 20th century. In "The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American composer John Morton," a Canadian university student visits Washington, D.C., and experiences the Vietnam War and its aftermath through an intense musical encounter. In "Manners of Dying," variations of a warden's letter to the mother of an executed man reveal how each life is contained in its end. The final story, "The Vita Eterna Mirror Company: Mirrors to Last till Kingdom Come," is about a young man who discovers an antique mirror-making machine that runs on memories.