I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle throug
h another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness
. Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident in his dau
ghter's house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells h
imself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would rather fo
rget - his wife's recent death and the horrific murder, in Iraq, of his granddau
ghter's boyfriend, Titus.
