THE LADY AND THE LOOKING GLASS

A first novel centers on the dedicated withdrawal from the world of Ellen Winter, after the death of her young son some twelve years ago, and indifferent and impassive- the lives of those around her- a husband, a housekeeper, a niece, her former friends, leave her untouched. Musing, sleeping, remembering, she spends her days communicating with the presence of the boy she has lost. Certain events intrude on her deliberately safeguarded solitude; the visit of her niece and her involvement with a young man; the proposed departure of her housekeeper- to marry- and this she attempts to circumvent; the death of the son of another woman who hopes that Ellen will help her to endure her new grief; but her sybilline and impervious detachment is intact- until she senses that Hal too has escaped her.... A slender, perhaps insubstantial, study of an unnatural immolation, curious and on occasion compelling For women.