The Lamp for Lovers

"She had been the happiest days of his life, his brightest dream... She was his Eden vanished, his Paradise lost, his Golden Age over, and her beauty had drained out of his life like light drained from a sky of stars, leaving only darkness... The void she left when she took her light away would remain an island of exile within him... Oh, Molly, why did you go? And why don't you return? To shine on me..." --- Tom Quinn's lyrical novella is part guide book, part reminiscence, part fiction, and all love letter to Paris. It is a whirlwind of characters, scenes, moods, and stories, mainly love stories. At its heart is a stunningly original love story moving towards a beautiful and transcendent culmination. Paris remains a backdrop to it all, as James Joyce said, like "a lamp for lovers, in the wood of the world". This novella tells the story of the "Lamp for Lovers".