About the best thing I can say for this book is that I finished it. I haven't read anything remotely like it, and I'm glad. The book concerns the Middleton family: mother Selina, her widowed son Ninian, his children Egbert, Lavinia, Agnes, Leah, and Hengist, and Ninian's adopted brother Hugo. A new wife for Ninian and a long-lost brother along with a governess, a cook, a butler, and a footman round out the cast of characters.
I felt pretty much like a bird watching an impending train wreck from too far away to have much concern for the alien creatures involved. The book is written almost completely in dialogue, but it's dialogue that real humans don't use. The plot follows a pattern of greed, incest (psychic if not physical), deception, greed, possible homicide or manslaughter, greed, deception, death, cowardice, greed.
I wish that a person who appreciates Ivy Compton-Burnett would write a review to correct my prejudices. ( )