Though full of psychological insight, not to mention a noble and lofty sympathy for the human plight in general, "The Safety Net" moves its burden of circumstance minimally, and then by strange twitches of hearsay. Most novels give the impression of a tour too guided, the reader too purposefully led through a series of Potemkin villages and compressed encounters on the narrow trail the plot has laid out. The reader of "The Safety Net," on the other hand, is repeatedly and prolongedly situated in spots where the action is not occurring, though rumors of it can be faintly heard, and glimpses had as if from behind a broad post in the grandstand. There is something wrong with time and space in this book; though ostensibly about the highest realms of power, it mostly takes place in small towns, in manor houses and vicarages, and developments that feel leisurely...