"Reykjavik, 1918. Katla, the large volcano in southern Iceland, is erupting, turning the sky over the city into a crimson light show, night and day. Reykjavik is homogeneous and isolated. It seems entirely defenseless against the Spanish flu, which has ravaged Europe, Asia, and North America, and is now lapping up on Iceland's shores. If the flu isn't enough, there's always the threat that the Great War will spread north. Yet for all this seclusion and uncertainty, the outside world has managaed one major incursion: Cinema. Here, young Máni Steinn can escape from the apocalyptic threats around him. But now, at his city's hour of greatest need, he must decide whether he should retreat completely into this imaginary flickering world or if he should engage with the culture that has so soundly rejected him. Máni Steinn is queer in a society where the idea of homosexuality is beyond the furthest extreme. He is a young man on the fringes of a society that is itself at the fringes of the world - at a moment when that world seems intent on destroying itself. What should he become?"--Provided by the publisher.