Very few of the inhabitants of the Sardinian town of Abacrasta survive to old age. They are cursed to take their own lives with belts or ropes, called by a Voice that says 'Ajo, get ready, for your time has come'. Beneitta Trunzone is destined for the nunnery to fulfil an ancient family tradition, but she doesn't want to give herself to God.

Very few of the inhabitants of the Sardinian town of Abacrasta survive to old age. By tradition they are cursed, fated to take their own lives with belts or ropes, called by a Voice that says 'Ajo, get ready, for your time has come'. Beneitta Trunzone is destined for the nunnery to fulfil an ancient family tradition, but she doesn't want to give herself to God. Beneitta would rather give herself to Bustianu Chitarra, who knows how to jive and dresses like the Beatles, so when the Voice calls she dons her nun's habit, puts on 'Day Tripper', and buys her final one way ticket. Bantine Pica rises to be mayor, but after a disastrous late-night card game he attaches a rope to the flagpole on his mayoral balcony and jumps. Even the town's undertaker perishes, lowering himself dejectedly into a grave, a rope around his neck. As town clerk Battista Graminzone has recorded Abacrasta's births, deaths and suicides for decades - now retired, he has sat down to tell these many stories of misfortune, including that of his own grandfather, found one morning hanging from a large oak, ears nibbled by field mice.But one day in late summer everything changes with the arrival of Redenta Tiria, a blind woman with bare feet and hair black and gleaming as raven's wings. Suddenly the fortunes of the townsfolk - and our narrator, who has been suffering from serious self-doubt and writers block - begin to change.