On a spring day in 1998, literature professor Bluma Lennon buys a used copy of Emily Dickinson's poems from a Soho bookshop. Moments after she starts reading it, she's struck by a car on a street corner and killed. After her funeral, one of her colleagues - the book's narrator - receives a package addressed to Bluma: a broken-spined old copy of Conrad's The Shadow-Line, inscribed with her own dedication. Intrigued, he sets off on a quest that leads him to Buenos Aires, searching for clues about Carlos Brauer, a devoted book collector, and his mysterious connection to Bluma. Already a worldwide classic in its genre, The Paper House is a venture beyond our shadow lines, and what we fear to leave behind to cross them.