After ten years in Africa, an anthropologist & his wife return to a remote village in the English countryside. Within the dank walls of their rented house, a mesmerizing, sensual presence invades the small dark rooms and threatens their marriage; while the townsfolk grow ever more hostile. A suspenseful & unnerving study of the irrational & instinctive forces in human nature.
I think Paul Theroux has a firm grasp in describing the most basic interactions in the lives of a couple: The quiet desperation; The meanest of machinations that evolve; The futility of both selfishness and devotion; The telling looks given behind someone's back. He proves he's no stranger to it all-he's lived it. He knows the solid loneliness of two people trying to exist together in an empty house. He recreates experience in word pictures to put you in the scene, almost screen by screen, like in a movie.
