Summary

The prologue starts with an online chat forum in which gay men offered and searched for anonymous sex online. Bekim, the first narrator, saw a message from a random man named Ville and decided to meet with him. Ville, a very handsome man in his thirties, came to Bekim’s house and the two men had sex. Afterward, Bekim kicked Ville out.

In Chapter 1, Bekim went into a pet store and bought a boa constrictor, then had it delivered to his house. In “Spring 1980: People on a Mountain,” Emine, who we later learn is Bekim’s mother, takes over as narrator. She was the oldest of seven children and lived with her Muslim family in Kosovo, in the middle of the Balkans. She used to dream of being famous and living an extraordinary life, but she gave that up and resigned...