First published 1991
Judith works as an actress while carrying on an affair with a writer at a satirical magazine. Her life unravels as she becomes trapped in drug use and mounting delusions about herself. After suffering a breakdown, she travels to India where she stays at an ashram led by a guru who may be insane. She returns to England and reconnects with Bert, a friend who has stood by her through her troubles. Bert is filming protestors at a US military base who oppose nuclear weapons but threaten to detonate their own bomb in protest. As chaos builds around this demonstration, Judith becomes involved in searching for a missing child belonging to one of her friends. Through this search, she discovers a moment of calm within the surrounding madness. The novel asks what responses make sense when the world seems to be falling apart and which people manage to survive such circumstances.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, suspense, contemporary, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, descent-into-madness, fish-out-of-water
Setting: England, India
Period: 20th-century
298 pages · Hardcover · Dalkey Archive Press
Content warnings: addiction, drug-use, mental-illness