If there is anything the reading public knows, it is that

underneath the calm gentility of suburban life boils a hellish

soup of misdeeds and perversions. The rolling hills of Winesburg,

Ohio and its cast of fresh-faced ne’er-do-wells are always within

view. Michael Frayn, in Spies, has turned this tradition a bit on

its head, for in this book, the transgressions are mostly imagined by

a young boy named Stephen.[1]

That is, until the truth is revealed,

and we see the real and grown-up banalities of adultery,

ill-chosen love, and cowardice.

The book is set amidst the blackout curtains of World-War-II England.

Stephen has a friend named Keith, who is a class above him, goes

to a better school, and therefore operates as the leader in their

gang of two for most of the book. Keith voices the

game

that will initiate the story. Frayn’s cres-

cendo approach to this

utterance is so melodramatic that upon its arrival it can only

disappoint. Throughout this book, in fact, Frayn writes as if he

must close each act with a zinger to keep you in your seat while

the curtain is down. We get a lot of “Everything has changed once

again, and changed forever.” Or: “And then, out of the darkness,

his voice. A single quiet word …” What Keith declares is

this: