Product Description

Frank and Phinus have been happily married for fourteen years when a senseless act loses them their only child, their teenage son Jem. From then on they are immersed in a nightmare from which there seems to be no escape. Phinus loses her ability to sleep, and the formerly gentle Frank tries to combat his grief and guilt with obsessive vengefulness which escalates out of control. A weekend visit to a country house hotel is supposed to bring the couple back together, but it erups into a series of escalating bizarre, hilarious confrontations which only emphasizes their estrangement. Dorrestein's novels are always based on a topical social issue familiar from newspaper headlines, which make them provocative and contemporary: In Without Mercy, it is a teenage shooting with echoes of American high school massacres like that at Columbine High in Denver two years ago. This heartbreaking, yet strangely funny, thought-provoking and compelling novel about guilt and grief is by a mistress of suspense who shows us all that hell is not other people as is generally supposed: that there is nothing as terrible as what a person can do to himself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1162864 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Independent
'A truly courageous writer'

Ireland on Sunday
'A moving account of love, loss and obsession'

Independent
'Painfully cutting and surprisingly funny...Dorrestein is a truly courageous writer'