A Friend from England - Anita Brookner

Solitary and self-sufficient, Rachel leads a well-ordered life free from emotional entanglements and commitments. So when she befriends the lively and affectionate Livingstone family - Oscar, Dorrie and much-adored daughter, Heather - their mutual fondness is a puzzle. Drawn swiftly into their domestic maelstrom, Rachel finds herself enlisted as wise friend and unofficial chaperone to the feckless Heather, little foreseeing that her charge's chaotic emotional life will bring devastating consequences for them both. "Miss Brookner is as devastatingly intelligent and ruthlessly honest as ever. She writes so clearly, so uncompromisingly: she is as austere as George Eliot but has the wit of Jane Austen. This is a small masterpiece" SUSAN HILL "No one who cares about writing can be other than pleased by the effortlessly lovely turns of phrase, changes of tone and covert skills that Brookner commands and deploys with such grace in 'A Friend from England'" SARA MAITLAND, 'Daily Telegraph' "There is real meaning to Brookner's characters, and this account of their lives is convincing, pitiful, just, admonitory, chilling and successful" BERNARD LEVIN, 'Sunday Times' "Anita Brookner's writing invites comparisons with painting; at its best it has a luminosity which fixes character and image, elevating poignancy into minor tragedy" SHENA MACKAY, 'Evening Standard'.