Book Jacket Status Jacketed The brevity of Muriel Sparks novels is equaledonly by their brilliance. These four novels each a miniature masterpieceillustrate her... » 

Book Jacket Status Jacketed The brevity of Muriel Sparks novels is equaledonly by their brilliance. These four novels each a miniature masterpieceillustrate her development over four decades. Despite the seriousness of theirthemes all four are fantastic comedies of manners bristling with wit. Sparksmost celebrated novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie tells the story of acharismatic schoolteachers catastrophic effect on her pupils. The Girls ofSlender Means is a beautifully drawn portrait of young women living in ahostel in London in the giddy postwar days of 1945. The Drivers Seat followsthe final haunted hours of a woman descending into madness. And The OnlyProblem is a witty fable about suffering that brings the Book of Job to bearon contemporary terrorism. All four novels give evidence of one of the mostoriginal and unmistakable voices in contemporary fiction. Characters arevividly etched in a few words earthshaking events are lightly touched on. Yetunderneath the glittering surface there is an obsessive probing of metaphysicalquestions the meaning of good and evil the need for salvation the search forsignificance. «