We Are the Birds of the Coming Storm : Seagull Books : 9780857421890 : 0857421891 : 02 Sep 2014 : We Are the Birds of the Coming Storm is a wild novel that oscillates between fiction and reality. The story centers on two young women: Voltairine, a dancer who no longer dances but whose body is still haunted by the movement of dance, and her soulmate Emile, a young woman recovering from unexpected cardiac arrest. The girls are inseparable, and both their lives have been shattered by the horrors of rape. The opening of the dreamlike novel sets a bleak stage as Voltairine watches Emile lying in a hospital bed, her temperature dropping to dangerous levels. Voltairine is filled with sorrow and faces the blunt reality that her soulmate is going to die, chronicling each minute in her diary. However, Emile ultimately survives the attack. Later, at the cinémathèque, Voltairine and Emile meet a young girl whom they call ?the little girl at the end of the lane,? who is obsessed by the Haymarket