A rare book I keep re-reading, it is at the same time haunting and nurturing, fantastic and familiar. The protagonist, Sephony, has long since outgrown her husband, whom she married in obedience to her controlling parents. She aches for intellectual growth and emotional connection in a partly Huxleyesque future England that discourages both. From her isolation, a man appears and urges her to follow him to a different reality. Among his people she experiences caring, sensitivity, and truth -- normal attributes there, as is being able to fly. She longs to remain in his world, but cannot. Returning to London, she must re-make her life in light of truths she was blind to before. I was particularly touched by Sephony's re-visioning of her relationships with her adolescent daughter and with her own mother. And when Marder's characters fly, my spirit soars!