A Closed Eye

"Brookner triumphs again with this superb portrait of protagonist Harriet Lytton. Harriet, a birthmarked only child, escapes genteel poverty when she marries Freddie, her father's affluent wartime friend. In typical Brookner fashion, Harriet's sheltered existence and unawakened passions contrast sharply with her friend Tessa's short and reckless life. Harriet dotes on beautiful, spoiled offspring Imogen; while Lizzie, Tessa's plain and neglected daughter, stands silently by. Even Harriet's adulterous fantasies about Jack, Tessa's renegade husband, fail to give her fulfillment or prompt any decisive action to change the emotional status quo. Alone at the end, Harriet sits in the "empty room" of her life floating somewhere between life and death. With scalpel-like prose, Brookner cuts through the veneer of a life viewed through a "closed eye" and expertly exposes its secret pain, compromises, and betrayals."--Publisher,