Patrick Arter

When a couple attempts to depart from a fading party, their desperate friend suggests throwing one more log on the fire, summoning a charred, shirtless stranger looking for warmth.

For acclaimed novelist Brian Johnson, the stage of his final book reading becomes an unexpected tribunal. The ""visitors,"" who confront him are hauntingly familiar. Their question to Johnson: ""Have you truly been facing us all along?"" unlocks a flood of buried memories and regret as Johnson finally recognizes them as characters from his own novels. This unsettling encounter awakens a part of himself he had nearly forgotten, compelling him to seek answers to the questions that define an author's soul: What is creation? To whom does a story belong? And what does it truly mean to write?