The Sandcastle By Iris Murdoch

Miss Murdoch makes use of such devices as chance meetings, a two-timing politician, a mysterious gypsy who is a harbinger of trouble, and the reading of letters by persons who were decidedly not meant to read them, with as much assurance as if she had invented those devices herself. No other novelist now writing in England except Elizabeth Bowen can match her in her ability to draw characters completely and then show what happens when their sandcastles are swept by the tides in the affairs of women and men.

The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch