“This is the saddest story I have ever heard” - with this quote, Firmin, the last child of Mama Flo, who gave birth to thirteen rats in the basement of a bookstore on the squalid outskirts of Boston in the 60s, begins the story of her life full of hardships. In the family home, built from scraps of pages from Finnegans Wake, Firmin, having tried the book on his teeth, magically gains the ability to read. Soon abandoned to the mercy of fate by his drinking mother and lively brothers and sisters, he tries in vain to settle down in the world of people and soon realizes that his only refuge is the world of books.