Plot and characterization are barely bothered with in Pitch Dark. The breakup is a foregone conclusion—no suspense there. Adler refuses to begin her novel in any conventional manner. "It's not what I know how to do," she has Kate tell us. She appears anxious to distinguish her writing from the kind of tale where, as Kate remarks with fine scorn, "somebody loves and somebody doesn't, or loves less, or loves someone else, or someone is a good soul and someone is a villain…." This dismissive attitude is problematic. No really great novel has been without these essential ingredients. Nor is Pitch Dark, which is not a great novel, free of them: Jack is a kind of villain, the book is filled with love and its diminishment, and Kate, despite her self-deprecation, is meant to seem, and regard herself (especially in comparison to others) as a good enough...