The house on R. Street

by Sheila Kohler

Imagine a house standing in furious light. Such a light, in such a place - Johannesburg - inaugurates the world and enforces its inflexible terms. But within the house, deep in the drowsy precincts of its shuttered interior, adrift among the demented longings of adolescent eroticism, official images are deformed and discolored when seen through the crazed lens of desire. This is how Bill sees - inwardly - into an unclean realm lit only by the heart's blind wanting. What Bill wants is nothing less than everything - dominion, dominion - first over her body as it emerges into its sexuality, then over the offending presences of her family, whose mere being thwarts her. Among these impediments there is none more troubling than Bill's mother, a woman of a certain power. How Bill subdues this rival and then succeeds in translating herself into the sovereign personality in her domain - this on the model of a notorious cinematic abduction - issues into a novel of unexampled darkness.