Mr. Ethan W. Barris is an engineer and architect of somerenown, and the second of the guest to arrive.
He looks as though he has wandered into the wrong building and would be more at home in an office or a bank with his timid manner and silver spectacles, his hair carefully combed to diguise the fact that it is beginning to thin.

He met Chandresh only once before, at a symposium on ancient Greek architect.

The dinner invitation came as a surprise; Mr. Barris is not the type of man who receives invitations to unsual late-night social functions, or usual social functions for that matter, but he deemed it too impolite to decline.

Author: Erin Morgenstern