Anita Brookner ended her writing career with the absolute glorious At the Hairdressers, the only short story she wrote and which has never been published in print but is only available in ebook format.

It feels to me that Brookner put her love of writing, her talent, and all the topics she addressed over and over again in her novels and compressed them into this short story. Her compassion for her main protagonist, the typical lonely Brookner woman which she herself probably was too, shines through in every sentence she dedicates to her, who is in this story an 80 years old woman. The protagonist sheds all her bitterness, her frustration and unhappiness and Brookner pulls her one more time into the spotlight which is this time not dim and grey, but golden.

And finally! The Brookner woman finds redemption and finds it in herself to step out of her discomfort, propelled forward by the most unlikely character you would have expected.

Beautiful and cathartic, this final gift from Anita Brookner to her readers and I feel, to herself.