A house gun, like a house cat: a fact of ordinary life, today. How else
can you defend yourself against losing your hi-fi equipment, your TV set
and computer? The respected Executive Director of an insurance company,
Harald, and his doctor wife, Claudia, are faced with something that
could never happen to them: their son, Duncan, has committed murder.
What kind of loyalty do a mother and father owe a son who has committed
the unimaginable horror? How could he have ignored the sanctity of human
life? What have they done to influence his character; how have they
failed him? Nadine Gordimer's new novel is a passionate narrative of the
complex manifestations of that final test of human relations we call
love - between lovers of all kinds, and parents and children. It moves
with the restless pace of living itself; if it is a parable of present
violence, it is also an affirmation of the will to reconciliation that
starts where it must, between individual men and women.