For readers of Ian McEwan, Paul Auster, and J.M. Coetzee, In a Strange Room is the intricate, psychologically intense, and deeply personal book of fiction from the internationally acclaimed, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Good Doctor.
A young man named Damon takes three journeys, through Greece, India, and Africa. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers, and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover, and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his whole life.
A book of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion, In a Strange Room is the hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man's search for love and a place to call home.
ONE
THE FOLLOWER
It happens like this. He sets out in the afternoon on the track that has been shown to him and soon he leaves the little town behind. In an hour or so he is among low hills covered by olive trees and grey stones, from which there is a view out over a plain that gradually descends to the sea. He is intensely happy, which is possible for him when he is walking and alone.
As the road rises and falls there are moments when he can see far ahead and other moments when he can see nothing at all. He keeps looking out for other people, but the huge landscape seems to be completely deserted. The only sign of human beings is the occasional house, tiny and distant, and the fact of the road itself.
Then at some point, as he comes to the crest of a hill, he becomes aware of another figure far away. It could be male or female, it could be any age, it could be travelling in either direction, towards him or away. He watches until the road dips out of sight, and when he comes to the top of the next rise the figure is clearer, coming towards him. Now they are watching each other, while pretending they are not.
When they draw even they stop. The figure is a man about his own age, dressed entirely in black. Black pants and shirt, black boots. Even his rucksack is black. What the first man is wearing I don't know, I forget.
They nod hello, they smile.
Where have you come from.
Mycenae. He points back over his shoulder. And you.
The man in black also points, vaguely, into the distance behind him. And where are you going to. He has an accent the first man cannot place, Scandinavian maybe, or German.
To the ruins.
I thought the ruins were that way.
Yes. Not those ruins, I've seen them.
There are other ruins.
Yes.
How far.
I think ten kilometres.
