Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884-1969) is one of the great geniuses of fiction. Her novels, while seeming to be constrained and small, are in fact the opposite: they freely explore and reveal the wide intelligences and feelings among people. Reading them is a deep and addicting pleasure. Compton-Burnett is a novelist one wishes were still alive to write another book. 

Mother and Son is the only one of her 20-odd novels to have received a prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, upon its publication in 1955. It is one of my favorite novels.