The House of Gentle Men [Hardcover]

"The House of Gentle Men is where unhappy women go to be serviced: kissed and waltzed, whispered, touched and listened to." The men who work there do so voluntarily, believing it is redemption for their former sins.

Eight years later, Justin, a former soldier, arrives at the House of Gentle Men tormented by guilt. He was one of Charlotte's rapists & he meets her at the house but she doesn't recognize him.

Slowly they fall in love. The happiness that Charlotte feels helps her regain her voice & she feels she must tell Justin of the attack. Will Justin tell Charlotte who he really is? Read The House of Gentle Men & find out, you won't be disappointed! I found it impossible to put down.

This act of violence is so traumatic that young Charlotte becomes mute (communicating only with signs and paper and pencil). She also becomes pregnant by this violation and nine months later deliversa baby boy, which she nurses for two days before abandoning him on a tree stump. She feels intense hatred for the three, and all soldiers in general. She is willing to help support the War Effort, but not to this extent!

For eight years, she suffers in silence. Two weeks before the rape, she had lost her mother in a fire accidentally set by her younger brother Milo. Her father then becomes an alcoholic, unable to contain his own grief. She finally decides to go to the House of Gentle Men, a place set far off the road and where one can seek solace. The house is serviced by men, who offer only compassion and understanding (along with a few kisses and a waltz or two--but no sexual activity). These men have themselves come to the House to seek redemption and expiation from their own sins and demons.

Hepinstall's characters are just down the road from Faulkner's or from Caroson McCullers', for that matter. Complex, crude, earthy--each seems to have an exessive amount of "baggage" of their own to redeem. The House of Gentle Men is just the place. And into its doors steps young Justin, a soldier just back from the War in Germany, the sole survivor of the three young men who had raped Charlotte. His guilt has become so heavy that on the first night at the House, he attempts suicide. It is at this time that Charlotte too has decided to seek solace at the House, and upon seeing the near-death Justin, feels he is the right person to help her. She is unaware that he is one of the rapists. Theirs is a relationship that develops--and explodes when the two realize the identity of the other. Author Hepinstall provides us with a first-novel of redemption of sin, of sin of the most egregious sorts, and she does so with a fervor that she sustains throughout this work. Set in her own western Louisiana (she spent some years there), the Odessa, Texas, native convincingly captures the landscape and atmosphere of the region. She has created memorable--and often disturbing characters--akin to Faulkner and Carson McCullers. This is a Deep South setting, but the suffering, the sins, the redemption is universal. It is at once a love story, too, but a quite unsettling one. Hepinstall is clearly in command of the storyline and of her characters, memorable, destructive, and even lovable as they are. Her symbols (fire, ritual cleansing, water, the House itself) complement the story and the reader moves right along, unburdened by unnecessary literary devices. This is a job well done!