A haunting work, reminiscent of Albert Camus, which portrays, with exquisite psychological detail, the emotional crisis in the life of Jean Calmet, a young Swiss schoolteacher. As we watch the fathers cremation in the opening chapter, we sense that, even though his fathers body has been reduced to ashes, his spirit survives to haunt Jean. His fathers prodigious vitality and virility had crushed his family and ruined his sons childhood. Even after his fathers death, Jean cannot be free. The parental ogres actions continue to suck Jean into a vortex of despair.
