There are lots of things to like here. The prose has some excellent turns of phrase. The characters are complex and flawed, the lot of them. The plot comes together over time, but with enough happening at any given moment to give you a sense of tension in the immediate.

That said, the prose can fall down as well (I still can't believe "grimly glum" got past an editor). The book is also rather dated (1986 pub date) in its handling of mental illness - you can tell that there's a progressive (for the time) mindset around it being a medical issue and not reason itself for recrimination, but some rather heinous actions seem to be written off pretty quickly and the character returned to good graces. It removes agency from the character, and plays to stereotypes at the same time. Frankly, in general, characters move beyond traumatic or harrowing events pretty fast.

The epilogue - honestly, I wanted to bump the entire review up a whole star for the epilogue. It managed to craft a compelling story in such a short amount of time, to develop themes so quickly, and throw in relief the themes of the larger book as a whole. I settled on a half star because, well, why didn't the rest of the book capture me quite so soundly? Anyway, Lois, I realize this book is forty years old and you never saw fit to write about her again, but please give me some more Tersa Boni.

An interesting start leads to a muddling middle and an okay conclusion. Not dense enough to even carry this short length, in my opinion, and a bit confusingly written.