In the first section of "The Eye," the narrator introduces the main character, Duncan Whitelaw Marsh, an expatriate from Vancouver, Canada, whose story he will seek to unravel. Like Marsh, who died ten or twelve years ago, the narrator lives in Tangier, Morocco. During the 1950s and 1960s, Tangier was an exotic and lawless place that many Westerners visited to indulge appetites that would be frowned upon in their own countries. Living there was inexpensive, and drugs were readily available. Before it gained independence in 1956, Morocco was divided among a French protectorate, a Spanish protectorate, and the international Zone of Tangier. The overwhelming majority of Moroccans are Arab or Berber and the dominant religion is Islam.

The narrator admits that he never saw Marsh and only knows of him through cocktail party gossip and expatriate "myth-making." He heard that Marsh moved into a furnished house and...