The author's grandfather gave him a couple of filled exercise books. His grandfather’s life was marked by years of childhood poverty in late-nineteenth-century Belgium, by horrific experiences on the frontlines during the First World War and by the loss of the young love of his life. Drawing on these diary entries, Hertmans has produced a poetic novelisation of his grandfather’s story, brought to life with great imaginative power and vivid detail.

Alphonse starts a new life as a handyman. As he paints and decorates the interior of people's homes he gets to know their complex emotional lives—their affairs, familty disturbances, messy divorces, everyday cruelties, and unexpected dreams. But when he, Cat, and a client help a group of Afghans and Syrians at a makeshift refugee camp, he learns that not all locals appreciate their work ...

This novel is the answer to the mystery behind one of the art world’s great masterpieces - a set of bewitching medieval tapestries that hangs today in the Cluny Museum in Paris. They appear to portray the seduction of a unicorn, but the story behind their making is unknown - until now.