Riven Rock

Set in America at the turn of the century, it is full of fascinating historical detail. Following on from the great success of The Tortilla Curtain this novel will further establish TC Boyle as a novelist to look out for.

It is the turn of the century. Stanley McCormick, the twenty-nine-year-old heir to the great Reaper fortune, meets and marries Katherine Dexter, a woman of 'power, beauty, wealth and prestige'. Two years later, Stanley falls victim to a sexual mania and schizophrenia, and is imprisoned in the massive forbidding mansion known as Riven Rock.This extraordinary love story, based on historical characters and written with Boyle's customary brilliance and wit, follows the lives of two scarred creatures living in a magical age. It is the turn of the century. Stanley McCormick, the twenty-nine-year-old heir to the great Reaper fortune, meets and marries Katherine Dexter, a woman of 'power, beauty, wealth and prestige'. Two years later, Stanley falls victim to a tormenting sexual mania and schizophrenia, and is imprisoned in the massive forbidding mansion known as Riven Rock. He spends the next two decades under the control of a succession of psychiatrists, all of whom forbid any contact with women. Yet Katherine Dexter, now famous as a champion for women's suffrage and Planned Parenthood, remains strong in her belief that someday her husband will return to her whole.