{"product_id":"the-facts-behind-the-helsinki-roccamatiosbooks","title":"The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFirst published in 1993, this remarkable collection of four stories launched the career of a masterful writer. In the exquisite title novella, a young man dying of AIDS joins his friend in fashioning a story of the Roccamatio family of Helsinki, set against the yearly march of the twentieth century, whose horrors and miracles their story echoes. In “The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton,” a Canadian university student visits Washington, DC and experiences the Vietnam War and its aftermath through an intense musical encounter. “Manners of Dying” has variations of a warden’s letter to the mother of a son he has just executed, revealing how each life is contained in its end. Finally, in “The Vita Aeterna Mirror Company,”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ea young man discovers a strange contraption in his grandmother’s basement. As the machine runs, she reflects upon her beloved husband.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Martel, Yann","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Adult Fiction)","offer_id":48530043371744,"sku":null,"price":12.6,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0330\/3125\/8248\/files\/Screenshot2026-01-10at4.14.33PM.png?v=1768076080","url":"https:\/\/agricola-street-books.myshopify.com\/products\/the-facts-behind-the-helsinki-roccamatiosbooks","provider":"Agricola Street Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}