In this novel, the South looms dark & ominous in the background with its Biblical rhetoric, its conflict between a tradition of religious fundamentalism & modern scepticism, racial contrasts & the industrialisation of a rural society. But more than a novel of time & place, it is the story of a tormented family submerged in infidelity & driven by a vengeful love that is blocked, hurt & perverted. Peyton Loftis, who frantically needs a husband precisely because she loves her father; the decadent Milton, whose infidelity has made his marriage no more than a stage drama; & Helen, his wife, who loves only what she can control
- her crippled daughter Maudie, or the childish part of her husb&. This extraordinarily powerful novel is the portrait of a family who, in the words of Sir Thomas Browne in his URN BURIAL, 'all lie down in darkness'.