convulsion

In the huddled land of what Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher tellingly termed the “haves” and “have-nots,” Britain in the early ’80s was experiencing tectonic convulsions of economic disorder.

It underscores how complicated this case—this social convulsion—ultimately is.

Reconciliations are handled glancingly, if at all; the family simply continues, settling into new patterns after each convulsion.

She had done with little things, and Isabel, with young curiosity, wondered in what convulsion the last of them had gone down.