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(From Library Journal) The unnamed narrator of this chilling, uncomfortable first novel lives a life many men work vainly all their lives to attain: wealth, successful political career, beautiful wife, two attractive children. At the age of 50, however, the narrator has yet to feel passionately about anything--or anyone--in his life. Then his son brings home the woman he plans to marry, the enigmatic Anna Barton, and he recognizes in Anna the passion for which he will eagerly lay to waste everything and everyone in his life. Anna, tragedy ever-present in her life, warns, "Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive." Unheeding, he does not veer from a path which can lead only to damage for everyone except, ultimately, perhaps Anna herself. Compulsively readable enough to be devoured in a single sitting, this novel is brilliant, but unsettling. Obsession and its aftermath can be fascinating, but never comfortable, reading.