The narrator [1] is a biologist who became a local celebrity in his village, Monward, thanks to his book “The Reckless Outsider”, which describes the differences between sexual reproduction and cloning.
While posing naked for a painter named Molly, he meets Lotte, a photographer who is working on a photo book of racy people in Monward.
The biologist refers her to the village's young vicar, Maria, and to the owner of the beauty salon, a Somali woman called Sirena, who is a rumored transsexual.
A friend of Abel's, Taeke, fuels the panic surrounding the photo book by suggesting that Lotte possesses magical powers.
With death in front of his eyes his sexual relations with Sirena intensify, despite the fact that the woman's jealous boyfriend catches them in the act.
The government is working to control the widespread avian flu epidemic by putting down animals on a large scale, including backyard poultry.
The Twin Towers of the WTC in New York City were destroyed by terrorists, Atjeh deals with a civil war, millions of animals were slaughtered because of avian flu, but in Monward, people are worried about the magical powers of a photo book.
An innocent lizard gets the status of a dangerous snake and police officers hunt down geese with guns.
The author shows how humanity deals with truth and lies and that one is quickly unable to recognize the difference.
The nameless main character is surrounded by women, the painter Molly, the photographer Lotte, Leonora, the transsexual Sirena, and the female vicar Maria.
They all represent the different aspects of the woman, the seductive siren, the motherly Maria, he mysterious witch Lotte, the martyr Leonora and the hateful Molly.
During the entire romance novel, nightly planes to and from the airport Schiphol keep the residents awake, whose noise negatively affects the inhabitants peace of mind.
The dog remains unnamed in this novella, like his owner, which makes his name “Anders” (translates to: ‘different’ from Dutch) in this subsequent novel a wink to faithful readers.