An obscure piece of silent film draws a woman into madness in this "remarkable achievement" by the "Canadian horror luminary" (Los Angeles Review of Books).

Former film critic Lois Cairns is fired from her teaching job just when her son Clark is diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Caught in a depressive spiral, Lois is convinced she's a failure who's spent her adult life writing about other people's dreams without ever pursuing her own.

Then Lois attends a program of experimental film—and notices what might be a major discovery. Could an early twentieth-century socialite who mysteriously disappeared also have been one of Canada's first female movie-makers? A sampled piece of silver nitrate silent film footage might prove Lois's case.

But soon, Lois's quest to discover the truth about Mrs. A. Macalla Whitcomb reveals troubling links between her subject's life and her own. As the malign influence of Whitcomb's muse creeps into Lois's life, even her son is endangered. Increasingly ill and unstable, Lois is tormented by an existential nightmare that's part Wendish folklore and part cinematic hallucination projected off the screen and into real life.