THE BACKWARD SHADOW

This is an extension of The L-Shaped Room (better remembered as a film?) in which unwed mother Jane has retired to Surrey with her infant, David, and is still in love with Toby (not his father). Toby comes down from London to see her now and again before he gets attached elsewhere and Jane learns too late that being an independent woman (not in the current sense) has a premium. With Dottle, an old friend, she starts a gift shop which is subsidized by Henry, Dottie's contact. Before they're through ""the backward shadow"" has darkened all their lives: Dottie's is loneliness; Jane's is the problem of getting along and bringing up David; Henry's is ""dying well""--which he does, although Jane and Dottie cry a great deal. . . . Essentially it's a soft shelled woman's story--a term which has been discredited rather than the fact. There will be readers.