I take a lot of pleasure out of what you say here because the Sittenfeld review in last Sunday's Times just doesn't reflect what Cusk does in her novel. But I believe this isn't Sittenfeld's fault. It's the fault of the fiction book review editor at the paper. You can't tell from most of their reviews what the standards of the reviewer are. Too many reviews just reveal the plot. Bradshaw Variations deserves a real critic not a novelist who writes in a much less exacting manner. Also, I'd like to recommend Cusk's memoir A Life's Work and her recent novel Arlington Park.