The story, which is really an anti-story, as this is an anti-novel, is told by Jean, a janitor in a mental hospital in southern France. Just as the narrator in Moment of Freedom did, Jean keeps protocols, keeps for himself a written record of those events occurring around him. Also in the hospital are a strange cast of Dr. Lefevre, the chief physician and Jean s drinking companion, and his Algerian assistant, al Assadun; Ilja, a Russian nurse and anarchist; a French nurse, Christine, who becomes Jean s lover; Lacroix, a professional executioner who is suicidal; Fontaine, a Belgian sex murderer; Dr. Barthory, a wealthy Hungarian who served with the German SS; an American General who killed his Black maid; and the wife of the Russian Ambassador, who is having an affair with the General and has a habit of howling like a wolf. The plot, which is akin to a mystery or espionage potboiler, revolves around the execution-like hanging death at the hospital of Dr. Barthory. Any of the characters could have done it. It s hospital policy that everyone can give a lecture and a large portion of the book is taken up with three the narrator talks about witch symptomatology; Lacroix offers up a powerful, Foucault-like piece on the history of execution, executioners, and capital punishment; and Dr. Lefevre discusses heresy and heretics. Yet, despite its gruesome subject, Powderhouse does not depress, for it is narrated by a man who loves life, with all his senses open to the warmth of a summer night, the tastes of food and wine, the silky skin of his lover. Just like the narrator of Moment of Freedom who strives to live his own moment of truth, whatever brief moments of ecstasy Jean can grasp in this world of pain, suffering, and madness, he grasps with both hands.