text: This book, Styron's finest, is about redemption.  Heralded by the epigraph from John Donne, the intricately structured tale with its Marlowian manipulations of narrative points of view soon becomes so enthralling that  it's impossible to put down.  But it's also to Styron's great credit that  the novel's theme, redemption through confrontation with death and  violence, is reflected through its feverish style.  There are not many  books in the postwar era, and none in the United States, that have such a  non-moralistic but intensely moral character and impact.  Echoes of the  Greek tragedians (several times evoked in the text) and of Dostoyevski  abound.  Finally, the crucial role by the most-fleshed out non-expatriate  character, a philosophical Italian small-town cop named Luigi, elevates the  moral drama to a metaphysical dimension that most contemporary writers  don't even seem to understand, let alone approach.  It's a shame that  Styron has not received the Nobel Prize yet
  