Set in the magically real worlds of a market garden, a fairground and an unnamed land in South America, passionate love, prejudice and cruelty claim their victims. The angel child kills her father rather than another woman occupy his bed; love with the balloon man ends in tragedy when he wakes to find her body blistered by his hot breath. A fortune teller, whose helpmate is a rainbow; a disillusioned priest searching for a father brings back a bragging liar and a rape victim; a woman who has lived life like a bird; the disparate fair folk; how does the child, Miserere, find humour and healing amongst this motley crowd? The language is poetic, the natural world a vivid background to the novel.