Anxious, insomniac, and adrift in her life, Claire Vornoff drives out into the country to become a patient of Declan Farrell, and an education of sorts begins. An iconoclastic practitioner of alternative medicine, Farrell is magnetic and unsettling, and Claire tries in vain to resist him. As she dreams her way through her life, all the while refusing to listen to her friend Libi's dire pronouncements, her attachment to Declan Farrell deepens, and soon she finds herself caught up in a series of unexpected and startling events.
Set mainly in Ottawa and Toronto, this stunning novel charts the anatomy of obsession, capturing along the way the dilemmas of contemporary urban life. Harvor creates an erotically charged atmosphere, always alert to the pathos of love's ambiguities. Bold, original, astute, and above all deeply human, Excessive Joy Injures the Heart reveals things about us we didn't know we knew. This is truly an outstanding debut.