Rossner's theme [in Emmeline], as in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, is that sex has a chaotic potential that goes well beyond the individual's control. Sex—whether prompted by desire or a variety of other nonsexual needs such as the need for affection—can blind, overwhelm, even destroy an otherwise ordinary orderly life, and Rossner wants a slow scrutiny of just how this comes to pass: how does it happen that a God-fearing Bible-toting 13-year-old in Puritan New England would consent to sexual relations at all, much less with an older married man? How does it happen that Stephen Maguire, a decent man as Rossner characterizes him, would allow himself to have adulterous sex with a child? And how does it happen that a woman could later marry her own son?

In search of answers to the first two questions, Rossner evidently immersed herself in Lowell's history, including facts...