The first incarnation of what would become Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial film The Dreamers, for which Adair wrote the screenplay and then later reworked into a novel of the same name. So basically this was my third experience with this story--I've both watched the film and read the novel several times--and The Holy Innocents is certainly the least of the three, and there's no getting around the fact that in a lot of ways this feels like the first draft of the story. Its best moments (namely, the first third of the novel) are retained in the later versions and many weaker elements were rightly discarded, including a long interlude at the twins's grandmother's estate in Normandy filled with Ouija boards and pretentious aristocratic relatives. Wearing its indebtedness to Cocteau's classic Les enfants terribles on its sleeve, the main problem is that the first act, brimming with cinema, sex and revolutionary politics is so vivid that Adair has nowhere to go but down (Bertolucci was unable overcome this flaw in the film version as well). Not essential reading in any way, and not of any interest to those not already interested in the material, but I quite enjoyed it.

"He was also terrified that he had not properly read the small print of their relationship. He forgot that friendship is a contract in which there can be no small print."