![]() ![]() Soon enough, Pemberton – who doesn't even know the girl's name – "settles" the matter. She was accompanied by her father, who carried beneath his shabby frock coat a bowie knife sharpened with great attentiveness earlier that morning so it would plunge as deep as possible into Pemberton's heart."Īt once we get the background and setting, the sense of lurking danger, the feeling that Pemberton is a brute who will have his way with those beneath him in the pecking order. Here is the opening paragraph, which in its lapidary style tells you all you need to know about this novelist's approach to storytelling: "When Pemberton returned to the North Carolina mountains after three months in Boston settling his father's estate, among those waiting on the train platform was a young woman pregnant with Pemberton's child. She delights in blood-letting, as we see from the outset, in a terrifying scene at the train station. In the vein of Lady Macbeth or Elena Ceausescu, she plays the role of ruthless, power-hungry woman behind the evil man. ![]() ![]() The novel centres on Serena, who is hardly serene. ![]()
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