Dark Places

An unsparing, fascinating portrait of a hollow man who belittles and rapes the women in his life, sneers at those men who have the very thing he most desires and fears: true intimacy--both with the women in their lives and with their fellow human beings; and who must fill himself up with facts in a vain attempt to validate his existence and worth. Instead of a hidden, aging portrait in an attic which allows the main character to remain in a state of youth, Grenville gives us a library which allows the main character to assemble an identity of sorts from all the books he reads. As long as he keeps reading and digesting information, Albion Singer will exist. Uncomfortable in his own skin, he attempts to mold himself into the ideal man through his constant seach for facts. Albion's life is a constant state of orgasmal frenzy, if you will, in his never-ending quest for facts to satisfy his empty nature. But, ironically, he is almost undone when Nora, his long-suffering wife, reveals, she too, is engaged in fact-finding research. "It crossed my mind that this assembling of facts was a kind of parody of my own beautiful catalogued battery of information...." Albion always presumed that he "any day now--would sit down and assemble all his researches into something definitive" as if this would finally validate him in life and make him whole. Albion's Story might be Grenville's Portrait of Dorian Grey, but this portrait, instead of aging, simply fades away.

Kate Greenville does a wonderful job developing the characters ,especially of the vile Albin. He is seen as a man with no inner self, no moral's and finally no real point in his life. Not a " fun" read,still I had no time to notice this until the end as I was so caught up in the passage of a family into disintergration.