Bell's writing just keeps getting better. This is a short novel, relatively spare (compared, for example, to his lush historical novels about Haiti) but it is beautifully written and complex and could easily lend itself to repeated readings to explore details of character and language. The Color Of Night succeeds in conveying a sense of the drugged out cult in which the protagonist Mae and her lover lived in the 60's, though it is somewhat less successful in conveying the deadness of Mae's current existence. In the present, the narrative seems merely descriptive, where in the past, one feels oneself more in the action and mindset of the characters. The plot shuffles between past and present, revealing plot points along the way, doling out bits of horrific violence along with delicate observation and language that borders on the poetic. Eventually the past and the present converge for Mae, both in personal as well as cultural contexts. The reader is left with the sense of having taken a trip through Mae's eyes, a long, strange, and mostly ugly one, but it is a trip worth taking, because it is compelling, and because there is beauty amidst the horror.

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