The Policy of Absence

In a decaying port city of an unnamed northern republic, two émigré friends run a small claims adjustment firm. When a hailstorm dispute over a roof’s “matchable shingles” exposes deeper fissures of debt and desire, one of them stages an elaborate death trap beneath a collapsing rooftop. Part insurance noir, part Bolañoesque fugue of lost souls, the novel traces the erasure of self that makes betrayal the only remaining form of identity.