Set in the 1990s in West Africa, Saturday's Shadows is a novel about the slow, yet unpredictable implosion of a marriage. It is also a tale of love and devotion, as well as a study in the psychology of tyrants and how their rule destroys not only their subjects but themselves. Influenced by Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk (Anchor, 1956) and William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930), Saturday's Shadows allows its four characters to narrate how they will do almost anything to find themselves.