Frank Swinnerton

" . . . when you are done with it you feel that you are on speaking terms with three-fourths of the English nation." So wrote the New York Times approvingly about Nocturne. This captivating story-about a lower-class London family and a romantic adventure-unfolds over the course of just one evening.

"There is a haunting sense of a hidden crime which never quite comes to the surface, but Jerome Grace, whose disintegration was at the core of the earlier book, is here seen as a broken man, fearful and uncontrolled. His angers and frustrations are taken out on his family:- his lovely wife, Mary, whose honor he impugns; Raymond, the undersized, overweight son who fancies himself a modern artist; and the little visitor, Dulcie, whom he resents as a...

Mysterious forces threatening happy family are deepened by arrival of husband's mother, disagreeable "Woman from Sicily."