On the other hand, anyone seriously on the lookout for controversial issues in Melusine should have no trouble finding them. Most obviously, the novel deals with sexual abuse, which, although never overtly described, clearly lies at the heart of the relationship between Melusine and her father.

Banks does attempt to put the whole problem of sexual abuse in some sort of perspective—largely through Roger's and his mother's intuitive sympathy for the abused Melusine and through the school psychologist's explanations toward the novel's end. Even the abuser, Monsieur Serpe, is looked on with a certain amount of pity in the final chapters.

In addition, those concerned with a work's taking a skeptical attitude toward the existence of a beneficent God might possibly object to the novel's Melusine:A Mystery underlying questioning of a God whose world is often filled with unpleasantness and suffering—especially...