Lawrence Durrell

On the eve of World War II in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, an exiled Irish schoolteacher becomes involved with Justine, the Jewish wife of a Coptic Christian.

A former member of Great Britain’s diplomatic corps, the celebrated author of the Alexandria Quartet offers eleven sketches of life in service of the crown.
 After decades spent representing Britain around the globe, Antrobus has earned a shirtful of medals and the right to pass afternoons in his London club, musing over old times. His memory is long, and every old embarrassment still rankles—no matter how ridiculous....

The deeply affecting second novel of the Alexandria Quartet, which boldly questions perception and the nature of contemporary love. In Alexandria, Egypt, in the years before World War II, Durrell's narrator, Darley, seeks to fully understand his sexual obsession with two women: the infamous Justine, and Melissa, a dancer. In Darley's conversations with Balthazar, a doctor and mystic, it soon becomes clear that Darley's fixation is more complex and...