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Book Review of A Presence with Secrets

A Presence with Secrets
reviewed on


A Presence with Secrets "is a tightly structured triptych, giving us three scenes from the life of a typical Spackmanian âmarauderââread ârakeââand painter named Hugh Tatnall. The first section is narrated in a coy postcoital third-person, as Hugh wakes in bed with his new lover-of-the-moment following a riot in Italy . . . . The second is in first person, the recollections of a doting female cousin; and the third, âA Few Final Data During the Funeral,â is made up of the thoughts of a fellow marauder, now old, attending Hugh's quiet, Quaker memorial." Jeremy M. Davies, Context