Pillars of Gold

Speculation among the comfortably neurotic residents of a suburban London community over the disappearance of a neighbor creates a seamlessly chatty narrative in British writer Ellis's 10th novel (her The 27th Kingdom was shortlisted for the Booker Prize). First published in the U.K. in 1992, the book--titled after a phrase in William Blake's poem ""Jerusalem""--records in pitch-perfect dialogue the fretting of middle-aged Scarlet, a tense housewife with low self-esteem who lives with her smug advertising executive husband, Brian, and Camille, her truant teenaged daughter from an earlier marriage. Unchallenged by the indifferent public school she attends, Camille is conflicted about relinquishing her childhood and embracing an adult world she views as phony and mendacious. Next door lives Scarlet's best friend, single working woman Constance, who espouses the liberal view of global do-gooding yet can't bring herself to care about their missing neighbor, an American named Barbs, who might just be the unidentified body recently pulled from the local canal. The friends dance around some serious questions: Was ""women's libber"" Barbs sleeping with Constance's Turkish boyfriend, Memet? Did she get what she deserved? Meanwhile, they reveal deep-seated fears about themselves, their relationships with men and their own mortality. In turn, they reflect a larger society's anxieties about class, the intrusion of foreigners and the clash of traditional values with new market forces. One is grateful throughout this quick-going, entertaining comedy of manners for Ellis's urbane humor and her ability to see quintessential human situations in mundane daily existence. (Apr.)