Change the Name

British author Kavan ( Asylum Piece ), who died in 1968, originally published this splendid semi-autobiographical novel in 1941 under the pseudonym Helen Ferguson. Her luminous, arresting prose has a disarming simplicity that masks currents of strong emotion in the saga of golden-haired Celia Henzell, 17 years old as the book opens in 1912. Celia's hypochondriac mother shuns her to mourn a son who died at age 13; her oppressive father denies her the Oxford degree she craves to develop her writing talents. Coolly accepting, the girl cultivates a survivalist outlook and takes the first available escape route: marriage to a placid young engineer who whisks her to the Far East. Widowed soon afterward, Celia returns with her baby daughter Clare to England, where she falls passionately in love with handsome, generous and ardent Anthony Bonham, whose wealthy, socially pretentious relatives snub her. Becoming a successful novelist, Celia grows beautiful, desirable, diamond-hard and predatory, exploiting the Bonhams and her daughter without compunction. While her strange odyssey never ceases to enthrall, as the narrative progresses Kavan subtly shifts the center of gravity to Clare's doomed situation while Celia recedes: smiling, triumphant, commanding fear and awe. A haunting tale that unsparingly examines the emotional origins of destructive behavior. (Oct.)