The streets of Paris at night are pathways coursing with light and shadow, channels along which identity may be formed and lost, where the grand inflow of history, art, language, and thought--and of love--can both inspire and enfeeble. For the narrator of Eduardo Lalo's Uselessness , it is a world long desired. But as this young aspiring writer discovers upon leaving his home in San Juan to study--to live and be reborn--in the city of his dreams, Paris's twinned influences can rip you apart.