A Private View

Brookner explores the complications that arise when one solitary man comes up against a woman who seems determined to invade his solitude. George Bland is an aging bachelor whose existence has been virtually a mirror image of his name--up until now. For into George's life walks Katy Gibb, young, abrasively self-assured, who incites in George the most alarming feelings."Devastating...Her tending to language, as we've come to expect, is loving, cutting and exact." --The Montreal Gazette

"A narrative of subtleties and nuances, reminiscent of the narratives of the later Henry James." --The Toronto Star

"Elegant...Her poetry of forlornness is stronger and stranger than ever. Brightness falls from the air everywhere in this novel." --Hermione Lee, The New Yorker


Anita Brookner was born in London and, apart from several years in Paris, has lived there ever since. She trained as an art historian and taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art until 1988.