Yes, back in October the book won the prestigious Booker Prize as the best novel published in Britain in 1990. But the Booker Prize has never been a guarantee of success in the United States. Ms. Byatt has some theories. It has a universal plot, a classic romantic plot and a classic detective plot. And the plot was more important than anything else in it.
People can get the sort of pleasure out of it they got out of the old romantic novel.
In other words, it's a love story. Or rather, more than one love story. It's not only the public, though, that has been pleased. It was celebrated. And the celebration of the book, the tone of the reviews, pulled the buyers into the bookstores.