#nathan markham

Review of The Narcrosis Syndrome by Nathan Markham: "This is a study of sexual tension, sexual brutality and sexual perversity - it is also a study of insomnia and all the demons that can lead to sleepless nights. Markham paints a dirty, gritty story of a young woman, Crystal Song, trapped in a dark world of brutal sex and of a middle aged career man, Van Dressler, trapped in a loveless marriage. Their hungry, lustful liasons bring neither of them any real emotional satisfaction - just seem to grow their perversions and offer fleeting escape from their own empty realities. The couple meet under bridges, in trashy alleys, beside grotty riverbanks and seedy hotels. Light was never meant to shine on their midnight cavorting. Van Dressler experiences vivid, lurid and sadistic dreams and fantasies as his relationship with Crystal drifts over 12 months. At the same time he and his wife are seeking counselling - she admitting that she can't sleep worried that her husband will strangle her. The husband can't sleep - a throwback to his childhood bedwetting years - and Crystal can't sleep, maybe because her daughter is dying or is life only real when she can feel the pain of brutal sex? This is a dark story of madness, hopelessness, numbness and pain. But it's a page turner, very well-written. We, the reader, are sucked into this world as surely as we walked those streets at night"