Finished: The Sheltering Sky (Bowles) A very well written, and oddly hard to put down book, about three angst-ridden Americans who travel to North Africa post-World War II and face misadventure, mostly brought on by their own stupidity. I'm not really sure how to describe this book. I just read one description that said they were in "existential despair", and when I clicked on that it says "a moment at which an individual questions the very foundations of their life: whether this life has any meaning, purpose, or value." So...I can definitely see this in the three characters, but honestly cannot fathom how any of them thought that traveling to the small towns nestled in North Africa, on the edges of the Sahara, could possibly fix what was wrong? Port and Kit Morseby are a young, married couple who are apparently suffering marital difficulties, though we never hear why. We know only that they are both way too much in their own heads and about their own feelings to truly care about the other. Whine, whine, whine. Angst, angst, angst. Why me? Why me? Why me? On and on. When deciding to leave New York to embark on their possible marriage recovering trip, they invited along a male friend of theirs, Tunner. He hasn't been a friend for long, but eagerly agrees to go along with his new friends. Kit constantly feels as if Tunner would like to put the moves on her, and they do spend one night together. She does what she does best after that and completely avoids Tunner, not really wanting to be with Port either though. Port, who refused to be inoculated for any diseases before traveling, comes down with typhoid fever. He spends a miserable few sick days as he insists on moving to an even smaller town and insisting Tunner go ahead to their final destination to meet them. This leaves the incapable Kit alone to take care of Port, but to no avail. Port dies from the typhoid fever and Kit, rather than face the reality and going back to meet Tunner for help or comfort, takes off on her own out into the Sahara desert. She comes upon a caravan of two men and all their servants carrying supplies back to their home. She lifts her arms up to the youngest of the men and he takes her up onto his camel. Of course, he also begins to force her to have sex with him at night, but she quits struggling and decides she actually likes the comfort and the closeness and she becomes attached to him. She doesn't realize that he will also allow the other, older, man to also have his sex with her each night too. The man takes her back to his home, where he already has three wives, and keeps her locked in a room where he comes to visit her every day for several hours. She lives for her time with him. (This is truly weird. I mean, she's clearly not in her right mind.) Anyway, after he is away for several days, she comes to her senses and decides to escape. She does so, and is actually taken back to the American consulate at one of the larger cities by a French man she comes across. Luckily Tunner, who has stayed in Africa to look for Kit, has put the word out to all the consulates and has been contacted that Kit has been found! When Kit realizes that Tunner will be there and she'll have to face the real world again, she disappears outside the hotel they've taken her to for shelter and blends into the crowd. That's where the book ends! So very well written, as I said, but a very surreal, head-shaking book!