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Under The Volcano
By Malcolm Lowry

The action of this stream-of-consciousness novel takes place over one day 8212; the Day of the Dead 8212; 1938, in a remote village in Mexico. When the Consul Geoffrey, his former wife Yvonne, his half brother Hugh, and a smattering of characters from the Consul8217;s past come together with a dream about reconstructing a life that has been cast asunder by the Consul8217;s alcoholism. Through flashbacks, the reader is apprised of the former lives of the central characters as they search for some anchor to which they may attach their ill-fated lives. Much of the day is mired in the Consul8217;s alcoholic hallucinations and the reader is challenged to separate reality from fantasy as the day ends in tragedy for two of the three primary characters.