Geoffrey Braithwaite is a retired doctor haunted by an obsession with the great French literary
genius Gustave Flaubert. As Geoffrey investigates the mystery of the stuffed parrot Flaubert
borrowed from the Museum of Rouen to help research one of his novels we learn an enormous
amount about the writer's work family lovers thought processes health and obsessions. But
we also gradually come to learn some important and shocking details about Geoffrey himself.
