The lightly satiric focus is on loneliness bravely borne, the bearing-up being done by that excellent woman Mildred Lathbury, a 30-something spinster in the lingering post-WWII rationing of the early 1950s. Living in suburban London and on the fringes of academia, she becomes embroiled with the vicar, the neighbors, the neighbors' lodgers, and a few hopeless (and one rather intriguing) gentleman friends. Dryly, wryly funny, with a riveting sense of place, time, and character. (Part of the synopsis comes from the online Kirkus Review.)