in this glorious tropical setting, they enjoy a convivial life of good food, drink, and conversation. Novelist Anders Ratliff records it all on the way to understanding something quite different. Blind and destructive fores are at work beneath the tranquil social surface. Natural and human adversities erupt when Cephton, a philosopher, falls for the seductive Ava Foster during a hurricane and her jealous husband Lucas takes revenge at the annual Christmas party. The same night, Anders draws the reluctant Cephton into a calamitous midnight foray into the swamps looking for pirate manuscripts. But it's the fascinating and enigmatic psychoanalyst Iris St. John who amazes them all when she reveals a scandalous marriage proposal and declares them all prodigal sons--and daughters. The result is one of the most wide-ranging explorations of love in recent fiction. The Prodigals tackles the riddles of everyday life with a riveting intellectual and philosophical analysis that bends the conventions of the novel as an art form.

Hide more