By Pam Walatka

In “Queen of the Underworld: A Novel” (Random House, 2006), Gail Godwin writes flawlessly; there isn’t a sentence in the whole book that makes you stumble. You always know exactly what she means. Though it’s not a book for speed-reading, many of the sentences warrant a second read.

I find it refreshing that the book is not plot driven, and there is no plot resolution; the book just ends, with loose strings left hanging.

Godwin, a three-time National Book Award nominee whose devoted following includes many celebrated authors, bases this book on her own experiences as a cub reporter in Miami in the late 1950s. The protagonist, Emma Gant (the running joke, “no relation to Eugene,” alludes to “Look Homeward, Angel” by Thomas Wolfe), takes a job in Miami to be near her married lover.

We meet an array of richly drawn and believable characters. Each time characters reappear, Godwin reminds us who they are.

Much of the action revolves around Cuban refugees who have fled Fidel Castro’s new regime and are waiting in a Miami hotel for Castro to be ousted in a month or two. Although some of the dialogue is in Spanish, Godwin offers enough translation to make the story accessible to readers who do not speak Spanish.

With the customary self-absorption of youth, Emma progresses through a couple of weeks, interacts with interesting people and does her work. It could have been real (with the exception of Paul’s sinking a putt for a hole in one).

We hear, perhaps too often, what a great writer Emma is, and can be amused at her youthful expectation to rise instantly to the top and get everything she wants.

She does not lack self-confidence: “My combination of attractive surface and interesting mind appeared to be having its effect on Alex de Costa.”

Godwin mentions twice that someone is giving a lecture titled “From Delusion to Reality in the Novels of Jane Austen.” To some extent, that same transition happens in her novel.

There is the running theme that one must protect one’s “untransferable self” from being usurped by others. Emma pursues an acquaintance with the title character, a graceful beauty, who had been a young madam in a fancy brothel.

OK, I’ll admit I got a tiny bit bored toward the end. There is one overly long chapter.

But I would read Godwin again. Dry wit, good-natured observation of characters and reality are hard to come by.