Immaculée Conception

the long version

"In Montreal in the 1920s, in the working-class parish of the Nativite, seventy-five residents died during one terrible night at the hands of an arsonist. The surviving parishioners must now cope with the aftermath of the felony. Among them are Remouald Tremblay, a seemingly simple-minded bank clerk who spends his days caring for Seraphon, his invalid father, while trying to ward off the nightmarish memories of his childhood; and schoolteacher Clementine Clement, who struggles in solitude to keep from going mad in spite of past tragedies, unrequited passions, and the obsessive suspicion that something is terribly amiss with a group of boys in her class."--BOOK JACKET.