Books like The Invisible Worm

There is a story I once heard, doubtless apocryphal, to the effect that when asked why Das Kapital was such a long book, Marx is said to have replied, "because I didn't have time to write a short one." Fortunately for the reader, Jennifer Johnston took the time to write a short novel. The economy of prose here is remarkable given the number of potent themes she includes in this sparse and deceptively easy to read novel. It is hard to write about it without including a lot of spoilers, but suffice it to say most of the universal themes worth writing about find their place here: death, sex, suicide, incest, betrayal, fidelity, redemption, forgiveness, love, hate, God or the absence thereof, and I could continue. The best I can say is that the central trio of characters--Laura, Maurice, and Dominic--are all human and humane, and in the end the book manages to uplift in spite of some of the grim and sordid details of life that are included in its construction.