Visitors: A Novel
Dorothea May is a typical Brookner heroine, a not atypical comment in a review of Brookner's works, for Brookner is nothing if not consistent in delivering a certain kind of novel: finely crafted portraits of lives that aren't exactly blighted but are constrained and gray. Mrs. May has lived alone since the death of her beloved husband, whom she married rather late in life, and if she regrets not having children, she keeps her feelings well under control. Then her husband's cousin asks her to put up a young man arriving in town for the wedding of the cousin's granddaughter?a big, spoiled girl from America who has flown in casually with her crusading Christian husband-to-be and doesn't appreciate the fuss. When her unwanted guest arrives, Mrs. May tries to make it clear that he is hardly welcome but is somehow charmed by his insouciance. This would not be a true Brookner novel if Steve were a whirlwind sweeping Mrs. May into his grip, and he's not; he's a rather affectless young man, but his presence subtly changes Mrs. May, making her feel that she is "now being called to account" and ruining years of carefully constructed habit. The result is a charming, incisive little novel that won't sweep readers off their feet, either, but will make them rethink how locked into habit we all become. For most collections.-?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.