A Cloud of Ink, written in the present tense and first person, is a wryly elegiac fragment of a memoir of a younger version of the author, Anna, a hermetic, self-styled "femme fatale" inclined to the perspective of Radical Traditionalism. G., the object of her dedicated affection, is a Modern Guy (his band) and the picture of a troubled young man with the promise of genius--a mathematical prodigy, a successful song writer and Parisian rock star who...