Descent deals with various forms of selfishness, and how the cycle of sin brings about the necessity for redemptive acts. In it, an academic becomes so far removed from the world that he fetishizes a woman to the extent that his perversion takes the form of a succubus. Characters include a doppelg nger and the ghost of a suicidal Victorian builder. It is illustrative of Williams's belief in the replacement of sin and substitutional love.
