The reclusive Catholic novelist Gilbert Pinfold is on a cruise to Ceylon, in this late work from Evelyn Waugh—"the very model of the modern paranoid novel" (NYTimes). In an attempt to defeat insomnia, Pinfold has been imbibing a cocktail of bromide, chloral, and crème de menthe. But then Pinfold begins hearing sounds coming through the ceiling of his cabin: wild jazz bands, barking dogs, and loud revival meetings. Worse yet, he hears voices, talking in the most frighteningly intimate way about him.