McGahan constructs a world very similar to our own, varying only in the critical elements necessary for the setting of the novel. The world's tallest mountain is not
Mount Everest, but an island peak known as 'The Wheel', of some twenty-five vertical kilometres, located hundreds of kilometres southwest of
Tasmania. One man has reached the summit, the 'rich man' of the title, Walter Richman. Others, including
George Mallory and
Edmund Hillary have died in their attempts. In McGahan's world, Everest itself had been conquered by
Tenzing Norgay and
Tom Bourdillon. Following his achievement in 1975, Richman inherits the bulk of an immense fortune, and sometime around 2010, constructs his own house on, and within, an adjacent high peak, Observatory Mount, with views across to the Wheel. Rita Gausse is the daughter of the house's architect, who himself has died, apparently of natural causes, at the house. She is invited by Richman to see her father's work. As the days of her visit proceed, however, it becomes clear to Rita that there are many unsettling mysteries concerning Richman, his ascent of the Wheel, and indeed the house itself. In her younger years, when she was estranged from her architect father and often under the influence of artificial stimulants, Rita had penned a book,
The Spawn of Disparity, in which she postulated the existence of what is behind the indefinable sense that humans often feel in the presence of natural wonders. Indeed, she used the term 'presence' to label this quality which accompanies natural (but inorganic) phenomena, from mountains to surf breaks. At a moment when there are only six people, including Rita and Richman, within the vast house, nature appears to awake, initially in the form of a brief earth tremor. The second half of the novel deals with the climactic sequel to this awakening. ==Reception==