SOURCE: "A Microuniverse in a Mental Ward," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 25, 1981, pp. 12-3.

In the following review, Grimstad provides a brief plot summary of An Indecent Obsession and comments that the novel lacks complexity.

In her third novel, the author of the large-canvas epic The Thorn Birds trades in her telescope for a microscope, to peer into the self-contained microuniverse of the mental ward of an Australian military hospital, located on an unnamed Pacific island. World War II is just drawing to a close. Patients and staff await their imminent discharge—the rupture of their artificial world—with apprehension.

The ingredients in the Ward X mix include blind Matt, diagnosed as hysteric, obsessed with fear of facing his wife with his disability; Benedict, whose dark broodings hint of psychosis; Nuggett, a hypochondriac fussing over imagined ailments and yearning for his mum to take care of...