A Charm Against Drowning

The Scottish author of Brond and Jill Rips assaults the senses with violence in this novel, where even the wood deals ``open-handed blows'' and the characters maim and are maimed repeatedly. Campbell, a teacher despised by his pupils, his wife Sylvia and himself, considers his ``whole life a series of accidents''; he cares only for his daughter Chris, an 18-year-old junkie. Campbell kidnaps the girl from the deviates she lives with in the city, and takes her by boat to the uninhabited island, Breagda, that was home to Campbell's forebears before they were evacuated in wartime. He believes he can cure Chris and his own damaged soul on Breagda, where no evil exists. But with the arrival of two men, Ramsay and Neil, as well as Campbell's own deterioration, horrors occur and multiply in scenes of depravity that extend beyond the scale of human comprehension. One must wonder what purpose the story serves. (June)