Our fear and loathing for parasites is obviously adaptive. But this fear can itself mutate into a psychopathology.

And let you spend this first Christmas on your two legs in a city? he demanded. Well, I guess not! Nosireebob!

What is certain is that in “The Pattern in the Carpet,” Drabble eschews both chronology and raw autobiographical revelation for a more meandering approach that touches briefly on family pathology and private pain as it crisscrosses the centuries and unfolds the microhistory of jigsaw puzzles, an English invention, circa 1767.

Now, to do the job, I need some high-octane gasoline.