Morningquest

Veteran Aiken's latest tale (Jane Fairfax, Blackground, etc. etc.) - both buoyantly messy and thoroughly delightful - is centered on the large, wildly talented, intellectually playful family of a brace of internationally known musicians. A young neighbor, Pandora Crumber - starved for mental stimulation, thanks to a horrid, glum father - will watch, through her adult years, the disintegration of the seemingly immortal family. Pandora's frail and quiet mother Helene is her escort to the fabulous MorningQuest family, housed in a dignified if barely furnished structure in an isolated prospect of great natural beauty. In the spartan kitchen Pandora finds something like 16 adults and teenaged children, most shouting about philosophy, art, and so on, presided over by the stunning Mariane, the famous soprano, and her husband, the great conductor Sir Gideon. Then, during the meal, "with a curious little sighing moan," Helene dies of heart failure. Over the months ahead, Pandora gradually becomes part of the family as the musicians travel and the young spin off to various universities. Pandora herself will join one girl to study art in Scotland. At home remains Tante Lulie, who keeps the household afloat by raising vegetables and sewing concert clothes from curtain remnants, and Uncle Grisch - like Lulie, elderly and a concentration camp survivor - who busily rewrites English poetry. Meanwhile, as Pandora loses her true and first love, she realizes that she's "misread" the MorningQuests, and a blizzard of secrets whirls up from their pasts - as well as from her own. Then it's one death after another (as if Aiken, tired of the MorningQuests, decided to pop them off) before the close - when Pandora, now an accomplished artist, is in Prague; the box of ills (suicide, thievery,, adultery, hints of incest, etc.) is empty; and Pandora searches, with increasing hope, for a lost love. Despite the helter-skelter plot directions, the pace, place, and talk are enchanting. (Kirkus Reviews)