Leaving Home - (Vintage Contemporaries) by Anita Brookner (Paperback)

About the Book

In her exquisite new novel, Brookner deals with one of the great dramas of one's life: growing up and leaving home. At 26, Emma Roberts comes to the painful realization that if she is ever to become truly independent, she must leave her comfortable London flat and venture out into the wider world.

Book Synopsis

At twenty-six, Emma Roberts comes to the painful realization that if she is ever to become truly independent, she must leave her comfortable London flat and venture into the wider world. This entails not only breaking free from a claustrophobic relationship with her mother, but also shedding her inherited tendency toward melancholy. Once settled in a small Paris hotel, Emma befriends Françoise Desnoyers, a vibrant young woman who offers Emma a glimpse into a turbulent life so different from her own.

In this exquisite new novel of self-discovery, Booker Prize-winner Anita Brookner addresses one of the great dramas of our lives: growing up and leaving home.

Review Quotes

"A small gem of clarity and intensity. Her latest, Leaving Home, promises--and delivers--the savory experience devotees of Brookner have come to crave." --The Baltimore Sun"Yet another delicious reading experience. Her elegant prose and psychological acuity are fully on display. . . . As a narrator Emma is both clear-eyed and honest--often achingly so." --The Christian Science Monitor"Beautiful, piercingly elegant." --New York Times Book Review"It's hard to pinpoint how Brookner's world differs from the one we know, since the minute we begin reading her fiction, we lose our awareness of the boundaries that separate us from the people whose often circumscribed lives she is so deftly describing. . . . Admirable and refreshing." --Bookforum

About the Author

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. Leaving Home is her twenty-third novel.