Canadians who are tuned into the radio hear the official word sometime after 3 pm-former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau is dead at 80. And while the country busies itself dealing with the aftershock, the news topples Venus, a 50-something woman who suddenly, unexpectedly, embarks on a painful downward spiral through memories of a past relationship, including an extended flashback to 1968, the height of Trudeaumania and an incendiary time for passion and the imagination. Montreal, still pumped and aglow from Expo '67, is the Paris of North America and an exhilarating backdrop for new love. But Venus isn't the only one with memories to share. Satie's Sad Piano is a long poem charting the convergent deaths of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a love affair, and a fetus through the intersecting voices of an unlikely cast of characters-among them Radio, Mont-Royal, a series of old love letters, and a modern-day apostle. Here, in the guise of poetry, is Quebec society freed from the tyranny of religion. Enter the mind of the emancipated woman and discover what happens when someone comes along out of nowhere and shakes up the mix. It is about the world-a little less grey, a little less safe.

It is about putting all your eggs in one basket and going for broke, about risking everything for your one chance at living. It is about living.