Renowned for his translations of Catullus and Ovid, Martin's subjects are delightfully unpredictable: John Coltrane rubs shoulders with Petronius; a family of loquacious mice philosophizes about mortality; and Robinson Crusoe's Friday and Lot's wife both have their say. Mourned are the "disappeared" of Guatemala, as well as a beloved uncle whose brutal murder lay shrouded in the family's silence. From New York's Bowery to an artists' colony in California to the landscape of Vermont, Martin finds "the legends of the heart's lust for joy and violence."