First published 2003
Dr. Marcus sits across from his patient, watching her speak about her dreams. She trusts him completely. He has been treating her hysteria for months, and she seems close to recovery. But Marcus crosses every professional boundary when he begins sleeping with her. Their affair creates a dangerous triangle when a solitary gold prospector in the Sierra foothills enters their lives. This man lives alone in the mountains, panning for gold in the streams. He seeks something more valuable than metal when he falls for the same woman. The three characters circle each other in California and Mexico during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The psychiatrist betrays his oath. The patient struggles between madness and sanity. The prospector abandons his isolation for love. Their desires pull them toward destruction as professional ethics crumble and personal boundaries dissolve. Dillon exposes how men and women can destroy each other through obsession.
Genres: fiction, drama, 20th-century, contemporary, adult-fiction, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: forbidden-romance, mental-illness, unreliable-narrator
Setting: California, Mexico, Sierra Foothills
Period: 1950s, 1960s
274 pages · Paperback · W. W. Norton & Company
Content warnings: mental-illness, sexual-content