A young musician receives an unusual offer from a wealthy stranger in this haunting story of psychological horror.
Bent is a jazz pianist living gig-to-gig in a dark city of dead-ends. With no family, and no friends, he has resigned himself to a life of quiet desolation. That is, until the night he meets the enigmatic Leonard Fry.
After accepting an invitation to his countryside mansion, where Leonard resides on his own, Bent is offered a deal of Faustian proportions.
"There is a room in this house. There's only one way in and one way out . . . There's one lock on the door, and only one key to that lock. Now, what I'm going to ask may seem strange to you. I don't necessarily need you to understand, but what I do need is for you to agree to help me."
Disillusioned with his life of excess, Leonard has decided to explore the final frontier of his existence, the margins of his mind, by locking himself in a small room in his mansion for a year. In exchange for Bent's assistance, everything Leonard owns will be Bent's for the duration of his self-imposed imprisonment.
But there are two sides to every locked door. As the days go by, and Leonard's true intentions become clear, Bent will find himself venturing beyond the one terrifying boundary from which he can't be sure he'll ever return . . . the boundary of his own sanity.
"[An] unsettling, compelling tale all the way through to its twisted, fitting finale."
Publishers Weekly
"With quick, almost impatient pacing, Strydom creates a world that is fascinating and horrifying. Fans of Mark Z. Danielewski and of unsettling, mind-bending horror will devour this."
