A Well Executed Piece of Work

The narrative seems to be some kind of confession of a crime. But the meandering narrative weaves in a number of related and interrelated threads: the relationship of the narrator with the family that owns and manages the cottages-the dotty parents, the very strange adult son and the daughter who ties the narrator inextricably and tragically to this family and this place; the nature of the working relationship of the narrator with the worker who comes to be his right-hand man in his masonry construction business, (his quasi-legal tender); and the way these various relationships evolve to yield the narrative's mind-bending and gut-wrenching climax. The narrator also manages to squeeze in brief descriptions of a couple of thoroughly Kafkaesque dreams, a few of the highlights and low-lights of his construction career, and some reflections on the act of creation.