SHORTLISTED FOR THE 1998 MILES FRANKLIN AWARD The Vintage paperback of 1997's scorching hardcover 'Jones's most courageous and assured work to date ... a remarkable achievement, a subtle and disturbing exploration of complex psychic and spiritual states. Its evocation of Venice is as memorable as any account of the city I have come across in recent decades.' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 'both disturbing and arousing' HERALD SUN We all live secret lives. During the day, we're hardly aware of them. We don't let ourselves see them. Only in the night do they come into their own, our secrets, the pictures running through our heads. Not language. Pictures. Pictures that make us tense up and groan out loud. Nightpictures. Sailor drifts through Venice. He is haunted by nightpictures, his most precious memories, that leave him fearful, shuddering, close to ejaculation. His affair with Dieppe is meant to be 'pure l'erotisme'. No kisses, definitely no falling in love. Dieppe has memories that haunt her, too. As their sexual relationship plays itself out amid the crumbling walls of Dieppe's shabby apartment, the verbal and sexual collide. Stories become confessions, and sex a kind of absolution. But some stories should never be told ... 'Set in the decaying grandeur of Venice, and woven with shady references to incest, murder and childhood sex, the story of the lovers' affair is carefully constructed to create a surreal and sinister world. ... multilayered and cleverly crafted' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Darkly sexy and menacing.' ELLE