In a Dark Time
The body was found on April second. Lying naked in the boys' lavatory, her clothes cut into strips, she was the third student at the Wanekia, Minnesota, High School to have been found strangled. Tension and fear grip the community. No one knows when the murders will end or who will be the next victim.
IN A DARK TIME probes brilliantly our deep-seated fear of and ambivalence toward violence. Peter, the narrator, shy, reticent, a teacher at Wanekia, seeks to understand the killings by discovering and recording every detail. Alexandra, majestic, auburn-haired, aloof, whom Peter has desired since their first meeting, suddenly turns to him in a desperate need for physical reassurance. Roger, Peter's colleague, is detached, sardonic, relishing the excitement. Everyone protects himself emotionally in his own way. But no one's life remains unaffected.