Secrets of the Four-Chambered Heart

It’s late in 1994. People in New York City are navigating the Sexual Revolution: what it means for who they are and how they relate to others.

For some, long-standing relationships are on the point of falling apart; for others, their potential is about to be discovered.

Against this background, a very different dynamic has just been played out in Rwanda, where tribal genocide during the spring has led to the deaths of as many as a million-often the victims of sexual violence.

Now, some six months later, a couple of reporters from New York are about to take their lives in their hands and go to Rwanda to see for themselves, accompanied by guides.

The whole group has mixed motives, in some cases selfish and exploitative. In the case of two, writing about atrocity is a career-building opportunity, and competition exists to see who brings home the best story, and for what outlet.

For others, the focus on Rwanda’s sufferings is overshadowed by their own circumstances: who they’re with, who they want to be with and what else they want to achieve.

And then there’s the question of survival-not of the Rwandan characters in the book, whose lives remain precarious even six months after the bloodbath has subsided, but of the outsiders who are going to be trekking through Uganda’s gorilla forests towards the volcanoes of Zaire.

Drawing on biological metaphors, Secrets of the Four-Chambered Heart delves into the hidden architecture of human feeling-love, longing, memory and pain.