The Booker Prize-winning author of "Possession" presents a stunning, contemporary story set against the clashing politics, passionate ideals, and shifting sexual roles of the early 1960s. In Byatt's vision, the presiding genius of the day seems to be a blend of the Marquis de Sade and "The Hobbit." Peopled with weird and colorful characters, charted with brilliant, imaginative sympathy, "Babel Tower" is as comic as it is threatening and bizarre.