Wendy Lesser re-reads Henry James’ The Bostonians:

I even treasure the loathsome Tarrants — Verena’s father, a “mesmeric healer,” and her mother, the pathetic, social-climbing daughter of a well-known abolitionist — for their near-Dickensian vividness and ludicrousness. This is a novel in which no one is spared but in which everyone earns at least a grain of James’s sympathy, and sometimes (as in Olive’s and Basil’s case) much more than that.

I read The Bostonians (for the first time) earlier this year. I loved it, and shared a brief passage here.

(Via Mark Athitakis)