This collection of stories, mostly interlinked and largely autobiographical, chart the descent of the narrator from the onset of neurosis to final incarceration in a Swiss clinic. The sense of paranoia, of persecution by a foe or force that is never given a name, evokes The Trial by Kafka, a writer with whom Kavan is often compared, although her deeply personal, restrained, and almost foreign -accented style has no true model. The same characters who recur throughout-the protagonist's unhelpful "adviser," the friend and lover who abandons her at the clinic, and an assortment of deluded companions-are sketched without a trace of the rage, self-pity, or sentiment that have marked more recent accounts of mental instability.
- ISBN10 0720600227
- ISBN13 9780720600223
- Publish Date January 1972
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 19 February 2005
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Peter Owen Publishers
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 212
- Language English