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A tale of extremes and the outer limits of pathological desire, set in a remote mental hospital in the summer of 1959. "Fluent and brilliant... utterly gripping" "Times". "Superb" "New Yorker". "Quite marvellous" "Spectator".
Synopsis
As a psychiatrist in a top-security mental hospital in the 1950s, Peter Cleave has made a study of what he calls the catastrophic love affair characterized by sexual obsession. His experience is extensive, and is never surprised. Until, that is, he comes reluctantly to accept that the wife of one of his colleagues has embarked on such an affair.
