Night Watch

by Stephen Koch

David and Harriet live in a large house on a Long Island estate. Abandoned by their parents in early childhood, through death and alcoholism, these 'virtuous children of a dissolute generation' live with an alcoholic aunt, insulated by money, isolated from the outside world, and protected by their guarded, fearful and, ultimately, incestuous love for each other. But one evening David watches his sister making love to a strange man in the garden and later the same evening allows himself to be used by a male servant. The following night, guiltily but obsessively, the brother and sister strive towards the sexual consummation they have been reaching at for years.

Despite his stylistic affinities with the French nouveau roman, Stephen Koch has created a totally original work. He has intensified his simple sexual tale into a serious, moving and compelling novel. It is written in a flickering, inventive and icily dispassionate style that, far from separating the reader from the subject, makes him too an accomplice.

Stephen Koch is twenty -eight. He was born the Midwest, though he has lived in New York since he was eighteen . He made his literary reputation writing criticism for such periodicals as Tri-Ouarterly, Partisan Review. The New Republic, The Nation, and Art News. He is currently teaching English at Stoneybrook College, Long Island.

Some American press opinions

‘Night Watch is extraordinarily good. . . . I think it important to dwell on how well this book is made.'
Stanley Kauffmann, New Republic

‘[A] very serious and ultimately compelling novel. . . . Mr Koch has made an original journey into the recesses of language and pathology; his control is superb ; his achievement, disquieting .'
John Leonard, The New York Times

212 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Stephen Koch is the author of The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction; The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of José Robles; Double Lives: Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas Against the West; and other books. He previously taught creative writing at Columbia and Princeton universities for nearly twenty years.