num_pages: 227
description: In Falling Slowly , Anita Brookner brilliantly evokes the origins, nature, and consequences of human isolation. As middle age settles upon the Sharpe sisters, regret over chances not taken casts a shadow over their contented existence. Beatrice, a talented if uninspired pianist, gives up performing, a decision motivated by stiffening joints and the sudden realization that her art has never brought her someone to love. Miriam, usually calm and lucid, slides headlong into an affair with a charming, handsome--and very married--man. And as each woman awakens to the urgency of her loneliness, illness threatens to sever them both from the one happiness they have grown to count each other. Painfully wise, the Sharpe sisters embody the conflicting yearnings Jane Austen delineated in Sense and Sensibility .
language: English
title: Falling Slowly
titlecomplete: Falling Slowly (Vintage Contemporaries)
genres: Family, Fiction, British Literature, Literary Fiction, Female Authors, Literature, Novels
ratings_count: 470
publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group