Belladonna, Paperback/Dasa Drndic

Andreas Ban, a psychologist who does not psychologize anymore and a writer who no longer writes, lives alone in a coastal town in Croatia. He sifts through the remnants of his life--his research, books, photographs--remembering old lovers and friends, the events of WWII, and the breakup of Yugoslavia. Ban's memories of Belgrade, Amsterdam, and Toronto alternate with meditations on the mental faculties of rats, a depressed arctic fox, and the agelessness of lobsters. He tries to push the past away, to ``land on a little island of time in which tomorrow does not exist, in which yesterday is buried.`` Drndic leafs through the horrors of history with a cold unflinching wit. ``The past is riddled with holes,`` she writes. ``Souvenirs can't help here.