“Rick watched [Joy] with bewilderment and admiration, trying to fathom what it was in her with which what he knew was in Hugh must make contact. Somewhere in this healthy girl were guarded depths of understanding, another Joy, the antithesis of all the girls Rick danced with and talked with, resenting their blank incuriosity. Or perhaps Hugh made no contact with her at all at that level; perhaps he was tough enough, and in the midst of his gregariousness, solitary enough, not to need to share the dark inside. Perhaps that was even gone now, healed like a clean wound.”

— Randolph Stow, The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea