Elizabeth Jane Howard's [Something in Disguise] is really about selfishness; both unconscious and otherwise. It's also about love and happiness; what passes for them most of the time, and how most people acquire them at the expense of others. A family—May and her two children, Elizabeth and Oliver, her second husband, the Colonel and his daughter, Alice—tread out an intricate dance of tentative gropings for affection and rough grabs at happiness. The girls and May are well-meaning and affectionate, but inhibited in their ability to express this to each other. Oliver is feckless, lazy and selfish, using people, especially Elizabeth, shamelessly. Alice makes a disastrous marriage to get away from her awful father. May is left alone with him, taking refuge in a League of shady metaphysics. All the women feel themselves to be stupid and hopeless, the men superior and more intelligent.

Moments of apparent...