Top ten books about guilt

Annemarie Neary is an Irish-born, London-based novelist and short story writer. Her novel Siren, is out now in the UK.

One of Neary's ten top books about guilt, as shared at the Guardian:

Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith

Vic Van Allen is no Raskolnikov; he is as free from remorse as any Napoleon. “The guilt didn’t come.” Highsmith insinuates us into the point of view of the killer and implicates us in his actions. We are right in there with long-suffering, cuckolded Vic, with the copulating snails and all the rest of it. His move into violence is so seamless, so much of a piece with what has gone before, that when he holds his wife’s lover under the water and keeps him there, it seems the reasonable thing to do. Guilty Vic. Guilty us.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see: Pascal Bruckner's five best books on guilt.

--Marshal Zeringue