In this subtle, disturbing, beautifully-written novel [Green Water, Green Sky], Mavis Gallant writes of the disaster that results from a relationship founded on the mutual need and antagonism of a woman and her daughter, where love turns inward and festers, bringing about inevitably the disintegration of both characters. Imagery of decay and corruption convey to the reader a vivid sense of the destructive power of this ruthless love, the hollowness of its victims, and the symbolic wasteland that Europe becomes for them.

The mother and daughter are two homeless Americans drifting without purpose about Europe, belonging only to each other, their roots down in nothing but the barren soil of an effete family tradition, and no more solid ground under their feet than the shifting sands of their own fantasies…. The deterioration is complete when both women are reduced to the level of hallucination in the ordinarily unimaginative...