Sometimes, in chess, a situation arises known as zuzgwang. This means that you have no good moves available to you; anything you do merely serves to benefit your opponent and make your own position worse. In my research on Jean Stafford's third and last novel, I was more than a little surprised to discover that many commentators were of the opinion that Stafford had written herself into a kind of literary zuzgwang. The impeccably crafted texture of the story, so it seemed—its beautiful composition and slow, pent up variations on the motif of tension and release—was so perfectly done that any finish the author might come up with would seem artificial and contrived. As one of Stafford's several biographers, David Roberts, wrote: "No possible denouement can live up to the richness that the plot promises." I'm not so sure. I think I can find five stories a week in the New York papers that seem equally bizarre and surreal, yet they will be actual, real world happenings and not the superficially constructed ending of fiction. However, even if we were to grant that the criticism is accurate, the novel has so many other outstanding features and benefits to offer a reader that it almost wouldn't matter.

Every summer, young Andrew Shipley and his twin sisters, Honor and Harriet, come to Congreve House in Hawthorne, a quaint New England town, to be with their elegantly beautiful cousin Katherine, while their parents (John and Maeve Shipley) vacation mightily in Europe. Andrew always looks forward to these summers because he spends the lion's share of his time with his very best friend in the world, Victor Smithwick. The two get involved in all manner of mischievous summer adventures; for Andrew, this is the active creation of the memories of a lifetime. This particular year, though, there is a disruption. Victor's older brother Charles, a sailor, has come home to recover from a grave illness and occupies the great majority of his brother's time, leaving Victor no time at all to hang out with Andrew. For a young boy of Andrew's age, this is nothing less than a catastrophe. He is simply not psychologically equipped for it. The prospect of going through the eternity of the summer months without Victor's guidance and companionship is terrifying—so terrifying, in fact, that he begins to secretly wish for Charles Smithwick's death. ("Charles Smithwick die, oh Charles, get well, oh, big fat nitwit, Charley Smithy, go to hell for leather."; "He began to have dreams of Charles Smithwick from which he awoke in a guilty sweat..."; "But the small star would have to do, for he could see no other, and he wished that Charles would die.") The accuracy with which Stafford portrays how this relatively inconsequential series of events becomes an all-consuming passion in the mind of a small boy is absolutely phenomenal, a truly remarkable achievement. As the story progresses, the voices in Andrew's head escalate from a whisper to a roar. The way Stafford uses this device to communicate his anxiety, loneliness, and frightened sensibility is, again, extraordinary. It is fascinating to watch how other characters in the story are baffled by his often inexplicable outward behavior while we, the readers, know and understand his motivation for behaving as he does. For Andrew never reveals his secret or talks about the cause of his depression, although, as events progress, he begins to fear that Katherine is somehow able to read his thoughts and, thus, can see the malice in his heart.

In the meantime, we learn that Katherine has a deep, dark, hidden secret of her own: she's having an affair with John, Andrew's father. John has promised to decide, by summer's end, whether to leave Maeve for Katherine or stay with her, for the sake of the children. Stafford manipulates the plot so that Katherine has plausible reason to believe that Andrew may have gained knowledge of the forbidden love and, thereby, we come to the fantastic situation: the two cousins, each with a terrible secret, exist and suffer with the mortal apprehension that each knows what the other is concealing. (In reality, neither one knows anything and neither ever will.) The chapters go back and forth between the two points of view. The relationship between the cousins resembles that of parent and child, at some points (he's twelve, she's in her forties), and that of pals, at other points.

The story hums along as both almost begin to crack under the strain of psychological torment. Andrew can hardly stand the command that Charles die constantly ringing in his head like the bell in the tower of a basilica and, as the tragedy slowly grinds to its inexorable end, Katherine slips further and further into the grip of worry: