The aloof and enigmatic Constance Schuyler lives alone in Manhattan when she meets Sidney Klein, a professor of poetry twenty years her senior, at a literary party. A few weeks later, he proposes marriage and Constance accepts, moving into his dark, book-filled apartment. But Constance is tortured by a bitter past. When her father makes a devastating revelation, Constance's fragile psyche suffers a profound shock. Her marriage, already tottering, threatens to collapse completely. Sidney can only watch and wait, doubting his own moral strength. Constance's consolation is the friendship of Sidney's boy Howard, a strange, delicate child, not unlike Constance herself...
Superb ... Constance is a beautifully wrought creation who stands at the book's centre like a cool column of marble ... The New York location, not to mention Constance's neurotic flights, may put one in mind of Esther Greenwood in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. McGrath has long been a great writer of modern gothic ... Brilliant -- George Pendle Financial Times
McGrath has the gift, the storyteller's gift, to compel attention, so that you gaze rapt into the fire and listen to the tale unfold - Sunday Times
Sensational plot -- Catherine Taylor Sunday Telegraph
Elegant psychological thriller -- Kate Saunders The Times
Author
About Patrick Mcgrath
Patrick McGrath is the author of a short story collection, Blood and Water and Other Tales, and six previous novels including Spider, Asylum, Martha Peake and Port Mungo. His most recent book was Ghost Town, a volume of novellas about New York. Spider was made into a film in 2002 by acclaimed director David Cronenberg.
