The sentimentalist, Jessamyn West tells us early in [the] hauntingly symphonic ["A Matter of Time"] looks toward the future; the romanticist looks toward the past.

Or is it the other way around? It hardly matters….

[The] art of the novel, like the art of other dramas, depends upon bringing questions to a resolution. And Miss West, who is decidedly an artist … is not about to waste her gifts in harmonizing the old song about sentimental you and romantic me.

Her most profound statement comes when she says: "The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future."

That is her major theme. Now we see the true pertinence of her title, "A Matter of Time." What has so far seemed a meandering tale about two contrasted sisters growing up in a rambunctious California family faces the ultimate questions of life and love and death….

"A Matter of Time" is a story of subtle and stunning reversals. I don't see how anyone who has read through the early and seemingly haphazard episodes can possibly stop, once the absorbing pattern is clear. It takes time to reach it, though….

In many good novels, you will find memorable short stories imbedded in the narrative's flow. They can stand as separate entities. And indeed they do when anthologists come along with their selective snip-snapping.

A fine example in "A Matter of Time" is the story of how Tassie lost her first husband to an orange.