The Brookner Woman who we have come to know intimately over the course of so many novels was there in every book right from the start. Here she is not. But in the middle of the story, after a terrible thing has happened, we see her, during a nightly walk through London, become the Brookner Woman, being born before our eyes. It was a pivotal moment. I have been reading her oeuvre in publication order and to come upon this scene in one of her very last novels was a wonderful reading experience.

All Brookner’s topics, both the good ones and the annoyingly exasperating ones (feminism, Anita 🙄!) are in here.