Though you could read this as a standalone, I'm glad I read the first Katherine Forrester book, The Small Rain, before I read this. The Small Rain is L'Engle's first published novel and a bildungsroman, and A Severed Wasp, published almost 40 years later, revisits L'Engle's first protagonist at the end of her career as a world-famous pianist.

It was so interesting to see L'Engle's style mature, and fascinating to see her write about a young woman with a young woman's perspective, and then to revisit the same woman afterboth of them had matured. This second book felt much more like other L'Engle I'd read, yet Katherine Forrester was still recognizably herself.

The main plot of the story takes place in New York (and it's so interesting to read about the city when it was great, but also grimy and dangerous) and the building of an Episcopal cathedral and it's church community, but we also see much of Katherine's past through flashback. We learn about her career, her relationship with her husband and children, and her experiences of the Second World War and living in Europe trying to heal itself afterwards. Art, and commitment to art, is again given primacy in this book, but L'Engle balances it by examining how art, love and family ties intertwine. There was a bit of a mystery (I suppose), but really the book is about whether or not you can create art without love, and what happens when we feel we are denied love.

This was excellent. L'Engle is so thoughtful and compassionate, and even her villains are sympathetic. If you like literary books that really let you get intimate with a character, I'd recommend reading these two together.

If this novel had concluded at the 90% mark, I would probably have rated it “4” or even “5.” But it did not. It went on to conclude with a thinly veiled sermon. The last 10%, in fact, changed my mind about reading any more of her books.

I kept reading this one hoping I would like it more than I did - it was very slow and measured, and everyone sat around at drank tea a lot. And ate dinner. And went to dinner parties. And took long baths. And in dribs and drabs in between all that there was some plot. But only a little bit. And very understated. A lot of people on Amazon loved this book, but it was just not for me.