"Frederick Langlois could be that geeky seventeen-year-old notebook-toting sage found in every high school, feeling deeply, spouting out tiny poems, just a little too old for his years. But Frederick isn't in high school. He's in a hospital ward with other critically ill adolescents, dying of bone cancer." "Mercury Under My Tongue chronicles his short stay there, from his distant but friendly relationship with his therapist (and his mute delight at catching a glimpse of her cleavage), through comic moments in the ward and his emergent friendships with other teenage patients. Some survive, others are lost, and at the end, Frederick must make a final reckoning with himself and his family, one that is both dispassionate and deeply felt."--Jacket.