Undue Influence » (Reprint)

Anita Brookner is the author of nineteen finely crafted novels, including Falling Slowly, Visitors, and Hotel du Lac, which won the Booker Prize. An international authority on eighteenth-century painting, she became the first female Slade Professor at Cambridge University. She lives in London.

This novel tells the story of Claire Pitt, a young woman who has lived most of her life under the watchful eyes of her parents. After her mother's death, Claire reexamines her day-to-day routine and her future in her London flat. She passes the time working in a bookstore, where she meets a mysterious and attractive young man whose wife is ill, and they begin a relationship that dramatically alters Claire's vision of herself, her past, and her future.

Library Journal

Brookner once again takes on the themes of loneliness, the scars we bear from the emotional wounds of our past, and the ways that people do (and do not) connect as she tells the story of Claire Pitt, an unmarried woman in London. Claire, whose mother just died, takes a job in a bookstore owned by two elderly sisters. Working in the basement (the foreign language section, which hardly ever has any customers), her task is typing up the articles and journal entries of the sisters' long dead father, readying them for possible future publication. When older, attractive, and somewhat mysterious Martin Gibson comes to the basement one day looking for a book, Claire is drawn to him. They become involved despite Claire's knowledge throughout that Martin feels no real connection to her, and what begins for Claire as another of her brief and superficial affairs moves into the territory of obsession. Brookner's characters are somewhat chilly and distant, and although the reader feels empathy for Claire's situation, it is also hard to understand her self-delusion. Diana Quick's narration is superb; she fully conveys the despair and pain Claire experiences and enhances the emotional nuances in the story. Her first-person reading of Claire's thoughts and conversations are always compelling. Despite Quick's talents, this remains ultimately a distant novel best appreciated by loyal Brookner fans.--Melody A. Moxley, Rowan P.L., Salisbury, NC Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\