A rich and powerful novel, with the protagonists and the historical setting vividly depicted, this title holds it's place in the urban novel genre as a modern classic in a strong European tradition. This novel belongs to the urban novel genre, and is set in the Vienna of the 1920's. The tortuous and humiliating marriage of Gurdwell and Thea is evocatively set against the backdrop of a city which had witnessed the collapse of it's Empire in the 1st world war. Social decay in the external environment of the city is mirrored by despair, cruelty, depravity and disintegration within the marriage, narrated in rich and vivid prose.