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Fashion model Allison stumbles onto the gates of Hell when she moves into New York brownstone where her most appealing neighbor is an ancient priest who never leaves his apartment and seemingly spends all day every day spying on the neighborhood through his window. Konvitz's first novel is a painfully awkward book-length short story, filled with characters who are not only disconnected from each other but from themselves, as well as from any semblance of reality. Includes a "charming" eccentric (who is anything but), a completely incompatible boyfriend (who at first doesn't believe any of Allison's stranger stories, then for no discernible reason suddenly does), and a bitter, cigar-chomping cop (who carries a mousetrap in his pocket while engaging in witless banter with the other characters). Absolutely nothing rings true (except perhaps the author's own distaste for lesbianism). Made into a movie, co-written by Konvitz, in 1977.
Fashion model Allison stumbles onto the gates of Hell when she moves into New York brownstone where her most appealing neighbor is an ancient priest who never leaves his apartment and seemingly spends all day every day spying on the neighborhood through his window. Konvitz's first novel is a painfully awkward book-length short story, filled with characters who are not only disconnected from each other but from themselves, as well as from any semblance of reality. Includes a "charming" eccentric (who is anything but), a completely incompatible boyfriend (who at first doesn't believe any of Allison's stranger stories, then for no discernible reason suddenly does), and a bitter, cigar-chomping cop (who carries a mousetrap in his pocket while engaging in witless banter with the other characters). Absolutely nothing rings true (except perhaps the author's own distaste for lesbianism). Made into a movie, co-written by Konvitz, in 1977.