After twenty years abroad, a man returns home to Port-au-Prince. On the surface, the country hasn't changed. The smell of coffee is the same, as is the poverty, raw and violent, even the friends who have remained faithful to their youth. But as the days go by, with the silence of his loved ones and the whispered words in the street, this man embarks on an investigation into the dead, zombies and ghosts who have settled into the daily heat and noise of the city. A census in Haiti, you must be joking! People say anything. “How many children do you have, ma'am? Sixteen. Where are they? All nine are at school. And the others? What others? The other seven children. But, sir, they're dead. Ma'am, we don't count the dead. And why not? They're my children. To me, they're alive forever.