Though it was first published in 1940, it wasn't until a reissue 25 years later that Stead's novel was recognized for the masterpiece it is—the greatest picture ever of the lousiest family of all time. Sam Pollit is an exhausting monstrosity of a husband and father, not always cruel, but always self-regarding— "Sam the Bold" is his name for himself—and self-deluding. (He's anything but bold.) His wife Henny, the one he barely speaks to, is nervous, self-pitying and neurotic, the kind of mother who steals from her children's piggy banks, diverts herself with a half-witted boyfriend and devolves into a sniffling hag. Their children, six of them, are appalled witnesses to the spectacle of their parents' collapse and the helpless recipients of their toxic attentions. Stead, an Australian with a wonderful style, both headlong and sturdy, is fearless in her depiction of the Pollits and more compassionate in her judgments than you or I could ever be. When you know how heavily this novel was based upon her own childhood, that compassion seems even more remarkable.—R.L.