THE PAST

by Hugh Fleetwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1987

Guilt and evil pass down from parents to son in a novel of modern but timeless depravity from the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial prize-winning author of The Girl Who Passed for Normal (1973), A Dance to the Glory of God (1983), and Paradise (1986). This one is not for the fainthearted. The depraved family, Rosemarie and Gerald Powell and their only son Simon, live in a restored Spanish castle where Rosemarie spends those moments when she is not being sodomized by Gert, the German gardener, thinking about being sodomized. Gerald writes history and allows Rosemarie her sexual lapses as long as they are not procreative. Simon violates Peter, the gardener's son. But when Simon sees his parents and Gert mixing it up, he flees in a panic to New York, where he immediately becomes involved with a psychopathic Vietnam veteran who leads him to an act more evil than anything his parents have done. Too late for his redemption, Simon meets the attractive Bella and has a child by her, but despite Simon's fairly strenuous efforts to go straight, lousy genes prevail. Finally, intending to face up to his parents, Simon returns to Spain--where Peter, the gardener's son, has grown up and become every bit as nasty as the Powells. An absolutely rotten tale told with clever elegance.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1987

ISBN: 0241119847

Page Count: -

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton--dist. by David & Charles

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION