Richard Papen arrives at an elite Vermont college, drawn into an insular clique of Classics students led by an enigmatic professor. As their lofty ideals and aesthetic obsessions spiral into moral darkness, they become entangled in secrets and a haunting crime whose consequences echo long after.
A fragile teenage boy survives a terrifying museum explosion that steals his mother—and a haunting Dutch painting—propelling him into a shadowed world of grief, art, and moral ambiguity. As he drifts between love, betrayal, and a melancholy underbelly of opulence, he clings to beauty as both anchor and burden.
