"Kennedy is a world class writer."--The New York Times Book Review
A brilliant American debut from one of Scotland's most acclaimed
writers, named by Granta as one of the Twenty Best Young British
Novelists.
Emotionally numb, crippled with insomnia, and caught in a frightening,
abusive marriage, Helen Brindle believes that God has recently left her.
She spends her days performing banal domestic chores in front of a
blaring television. On the BBC one day she watches a self-help guru
expound on, among other things, the "rules" of masturbation and the
importance of "interior lives." Edward G. Gluck, she discovers has
developed a program that guides lost souls toward contentment. Helen
seeks him out, hoping to find an answer. Instead she discovers Gluck's
own sadomasochistic obsession, and his profound shame and disgust. And
what they both encounter, painfully, is the love each fears and both
yearn to embrace.
"A darkly comic tale.... [that] is hilariously funny about sexual
obsession and brilliantly perceptive about the dynamics of human
relationships."--The Baltimore Sun