The Cannibal Heart

In this remarkable novel, Margaret Millar returns to the themes of death and terror which first made her reputation as a writer. It concerns a New York family who rented a house on the California coast in the hope of a tranquil summer. Mark Banner was a young, successful publisher. His wife, Evelyn, was bright and competent, and very much afraid of losing her husband. When Janet Wakefield returned from her travels to take inventory in the house she had rented to the Banners, Evelyn recognized an enemy at sight. The covert struggle between the two women for the possession of Evelyn's husband, and her daughter, Jessie, gradually became a fight to the death. This story covers only three days, it has the compactness of an ancient tragedy. Much of it is seen through the eyes of the child, Jessie, who is Mrs. Wakefield's first convert and her final victim. Margaret Millar's novel is daring, deeply disturbing, yet marked by unusual beauty.