"This particular hell is an Army post in the South. Its inhabitants: a sexually disturbed author; his sensual animal of a wife; his fellow-officer and wife's lover; a delicate, sensitive woman who must live with her husband's infidelity; and the driven young Private who brings the searing drama to a head. From these elements, one of America's superlative writers has produced a vision of existance as terrible as it is real-- a shattering voyage into the depths of human hatred and desire." -- Back cover.