The Curious Case of the Village in the Moonlight

Saint-Paul Mental Asylum, France, June 1889



Newly admitted patient Vincent Van Gogh watched as the first stars of what would become The Starry Night blinked to life over the sleepy village of Saint-Rémy.



In that village lived a lamplighter. That notorious starry night would be his last one on the job. The town was scheduled to be wired with a new and innovative technology called 'electricity' the following day. The lamplighter began his last night of work at the village tavern during green hour - an absinthe-drenched celebration in his honor. Green hour would transform the night from familiar to fantastical, with the village street lamps mysteriously vanishing. The lamplighter finds himself swept away on a wonderfully strange adventure to find and light the lost lamps, one that will take him from the depths of wish-filled rivers to the heights of the star-filled sky. Along the way, the lamplighter finds help from a curious cast of characters including the Man in the Moon, an ages-old cypress tree, and the wind itself. It will take all of them to find the lost lamps, and a lost love.



From author of the highly acclaimed Fairytale Chicago of Francesca Finnegan comes a thought-provoking and unconventional novella, sure to help readers rediscover the stars.