Gil has just moved from Manhattan to an expensive neighbourhood in Phoenix, Arizona. Thanks to his inherited wealth, the house he is moving into is palatial – his nickname for it is “the castle”. The view of the house next door, however, is its most striking feature, as the wall that faces his windows is made entirely of glass. He can watch the neighbouring family as if they were fish in an aquarium.
This seems to set us up for a strange and unsettling story. Magnifying this effect is the laconic minimalism of the prose. Scenes mainly consist of unadorned dialogue. The average paragraph is two sentences long; many are shorter. Millet likes fragments, so it’s not unusual, either, for a sentence to be one word long. Lurking beneath this clipped surface are mysteries: what crisis drove Gil to leave New York? What will he observe through that glass wall? What is the secret behind his wealth? Gil is determined to use his life in service; to be a good man. Is that possible in 21st-century America for a man of such extreme privilege?
