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Desolation, desert, and despair. These three words best surmise The Sheltering Sky, a powerful and thought-provoking character study which follows the lives of three well-to-do Americans as they journey into the depths of Africa, the desert, and themselves.

The Sheltering Sky begins with the travelers, Port and Kit, a married couple, and their bachelor friend, Tunner, wandering the semi-savage expanses of Africa just after the World War. We quickly learn that Port and Kit have grown distant (or found distance between them), yet each seeks to rekindle the emotion they once had. This is the central conflict that drives the book, but this is no ordinary story of love reborn.

A word of caution - this is not a book for everyone. First off, readers of standard fare pulp will not enjoy the juxtaposition of plot and character. In many instances, authors use characters as artifices to drive the plot toward its conclusion; here Bowles uses the plot as a backdrop upon which the characters are painstakingly developed. One could argue that very little actually "happens" in this book, but that would be missing the point entirely.

Secondly, this is not a happy book - this is a depressing book; it's actually far past depressing. It starts out melancholy, picks up steam towards depressing about fifty pages in, chugs past morose around page 150, and just spirals out of control from there. If you like Disney, or fairy tales with happy endings, I would recommend reading Ernest Hemmingway. It will seem like Winnie the Pooh compared to this.

If these minor points do no dissuade you, The Sheltering Sky is truly a worthwhile read. It tackles subjects like love, commitment, death, and eternity in a very real and accessible manner. The characters are vividly drawn, and you truly feel sympathy (or, depending on your spin, empathy) for their situations. I would strongly recommend this to anyone who enjoys novels just a bit off the beaten path, and encourage even readers of pure pulp to give it a try.

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(Submitted 2/8/02 by Josh Freeman.)