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THE SECOND WINDOW by Robin Maugham

THE SECOND WINDOW

By

Pub Date: Sept. 9th, 1968
Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Robin Maugham whether in the shorter forms (novellas like The Servant) or longer, here, has always been a story teller. You not only know just where you are but your attention, fixed at that point, is retained with gratifying expertise. The second window to a boarded-up small room in an old Victorian house is discovered by the man who buys it along with the diary of one Martin Yorke. He was a journalist who sealed himself up there to write it and it deals with four incidents in the life of a curious but not very savory character. The first, and most fascinating, anent an assignment in Mombasa where he becomes involved with a Mrs. Clarke, an aging woman on drugs, and even more so, with her granddaughter, Linda. She's a Lolita type the old woman has used to support her habit. The second covers his affair with Sandra whom he also exploits and who ends-- shattered--in a sanitarium; in the third he propels an English Buddhist monk-hermit toward death rather than the eternal life of abnegation; and finally his own predetermining experience with a sexually versatile stableboy, Mr. Mougham's theme once again is the dark side of psychosexual obsession and he has offered a sultry, insidious and insinuating entertainment.