A deeply uncomfortable read. Not just for its graphic decription of the rape of a 15 year old girl, but for the feelings the narrator stirs up in the reader. Alan is a psychiatrist who says of his wife: “I do not admire her….I feel intellectually superior to her….I have encouraged her to pursue a master’s degree so we might engage in more sophisticated conversations.” He’s a patronising prick: egotistical and deeply unethical in the way he influences the police and the rape victim and her family when they are trying to identify the rapist, and it seems the focus may fall on his son. But by the end you do experience some compassion for him. Worth a read if you like your fiction provocative and disturbing.
