Albion Gidley Singer inhabits the shell of an entirely proper man of the world: husband, father, pillar of the community. But within him are frightened and frightening dark places from which spring fear and loathing of the flesh of females. And finally, the kind of violence that might call itself love. It is through the eyes of Albion Gidley Singer that the world is seen and in his voice that the story is told, and it is a voice that never suffers from self doubt. He can never know, as the reader does, that what he sees is horribly wrong and what he thinks about the world around him is distorted by his damaged self
