Desperate Characters by Paula Fox is a novel about fear: fear of circumstances that cannot be controlled, of forces that cannot be understood, and, most of all, fear of exposure.  Fox’s main characters, husband and wife Otto and Sophie Bentwood, struggle to contain themselves quietly and rigidly in their marriage and in the life they have constructed together; it is a life that is professional but artistic, affluent but measured, committed but restrained. The Bentwoods are neurotic, uptight, and wholly aligned one to the other, with only isolated bursts of anger or passion or refusal ripping occasionally  through the fabric of their constructed and sterile life.  It is this fabric that shields them from exposure and so any rip is rewoven quickly and with determination, any tear is quietly but securely re-attached.  Nevertheless, the rifts and bumps show, when examined, and hurt, when touched.

The novel begins with Sophie suffering a vicious bite at the mouth of a feral cat she is feeding in the yard of their Brooklyn Brownstone.  With that bite, Sophie has admitted in all that she and Otto have fought to keep out, the hunger and dirt and abandonment  — the lawlessness — of the Brooklyn neighborhood that surrounds them. The facade of structure, rules, and civilization that they have maintained is under assault, and the cat bite is only one part of the offensive: events start accumulating against them.  Not only events but also circumstances: approaching middle age, childlessness, and an unhinging of shutters they had thought were securely fastened.

The manner in which Fox constructs her novel, with carefully measured sentences, vivid but subtle characterization, and mutely presented landscape providing the contrast for the searing and visceral plot of exposure and vulnerability, mirrors the characters themselves; Sophie and Otto are careful and measured and subtle and yet, when push comes to shove, they are not: they are vicious survivalists, and pointedly, and sadly, not up to the job of succeeding at civilization, after all.