the short fiction of american literary cult figure paul bowles is marked by a unique delicately spare style and a dark rich exotic mood by turns chilling ironic and wrypossessing a symmetry between beauty and terror that is haunting and ultimately moral in pastor dowe at tecat a protestant missionary is sent to a faraway place where his god has no power in call at corazn an american husband abandons his alcoholic wife on their honeymoon in a south american jungle in allal a boys druginduced metamorphosis into a deadly serpent leads to his violent death here also are some of bowless most famous works including the delicate prey a grimly satisfying tale of vengeance and a distant episode which tennessee williams proclaimed a masterpiece