Newspaper Article

Stain leaves indelible mark on the mind

Potter, Greg

2003

Overview

The opportunity presents itself when Silk, inquiring after two students who have failed to turn up for a single class, asks: \"Do they exist or are they spooks?\" Well, they do exist and are, in fact, African-Americans. It is 1998 and political correctness has reached the zenith of its stupidity. The remark is conveniently ripped out of context and Silk finds himself embroiled in controversy over uttering \"a racial epithet.\" It costs him his job and subsequently his wife, who dies from the strain of the incident. A chance meeting with a self-described \"white-trash cleaning woman,\" Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman), leads Silk into a torrid affair and yet another scandalous situation. Half his age, abused since childhood and brazenly self-destructive, Faunia proves to be Silk's Achilles heel. She is indirectly to blame for the deaths of her two children (the remains of which she keeps in boxes under her bed) and her estranged husband Lester (Ed Harris)--recently released from a veterans' administration mental hospital--has vowed to kill her and her lover.

• Publisher: Postmedia Network Inc
• Subject: Zuckerman, Nathan