In Let It Come Down, Paul Bowles plots the doomed trajectory of Nelson Dyar, a New York bank teller who comes to Tangier in search of a different life and ends up giving in to his darkest impulses. Rich in descriptions of the corruption and decadence of the International Zone in the last days before Moroccan independence, Bowles's second novel is an alternately comic and horrific account of a descent into nihilism.

First published in 1952, Paul Bowles' novel Let It Come Down (the citation from Shakespeare's Macbeth) celebrates an era within the city of Tangier which, as Bowles notes in his Preface "Thirty Years Later", "has long ago ceased to exist. ... Like a photograph, the tale is a document relating to a specific place at a given moment in time, illuminated by the light of that particular moment". The final section of the novel, "Another Kind of Silence", was famously written in Xauen in the Rif mountains while under the influence of kif.

After a scarring teenage experience, Bethany Cary has erected walls around her heart. Doctor Luke Willoughs has done the same since his wife's death. Together, they can make the walls come tumbling down, but at what cost? Bethany is content with her life as a preschool teacher. She is certain she'll never marry, definitely never fall in love. Then she feels a call to work in Africa. She doesn't know when or how, but she begins preparations. As the school year progresses, she becomes close to four-year-old Jenny, who lost her mother at birth. Soon Bethany is babysitting Jenny, and she strikes up a friendship with Jenny's strikingly handsome father, a surgeon. Luke has been preparing to return to Africa to continue his mission work as a doctor, but he will not go without Jenny. Recognizing that Jenny needs a mother and that Bethany has become a good friend to him, he asks for Bethany's hand in marriage. With their hearts so firmly guarded, neither of them can contemplate ever falling in love, so it seems an ideal solution. When they arrive in Africa, Luke is forced to face haunting memories of the woman he still loves, and Bethany's world is turned upside down. Their walls are soon higher and stronger than ever before, driving them apart. Does God have a plan to bring them together, unguarded, or have they made the biggest mistake of their lives? Vivian Jenkins's own missionary experiences in Zimbabwe are woven into the story throughout, creating a spellbinding, poignant read. Let the Walls Come Down.