The Book and the Brotherhood - by Iris Murdoch (Paperback)

About the Book

Years ago, a group of friends bonded together to finance a political and philosophical book to be written by one of them. Now, amidst a midsummer ball at Oxford, a crisis occurs, and the vindictive ghosts of the past invade the present.

Book Synopsis

A story about love and friendship and Marxism

Many years ago Gerard Hernshaw and his friends "commissioned" one of their number to write a political book.

Time passes and opinions change. "Why should we go on supporting a book which we detest?" Rose Curtland asks. "The brotherhood of Western intellectuals versus the book of history," Jenkin Riderhood suggests. The theft of a wife further embroils the situation. Moral indignation must be separated from political disagreement.

Tamar Hernshaw has a different trouble and a terrible secret. Can one die of shame? In another quarter a suicide pact seems the solution. Duncan Cambus thinks that since it is a tragedy, someone must die. Someone dies. Rose, who has gone on loving without hope, at least deserves a reward.

About the Author

Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) was born in Dublin and brought up in London. She studied philosophy at Cambridge and was a philosophy fellow at St. Anne's College for 20 years. She published her first novel in 1954 and was instantly recognized as a major talent. She went on to publish more than 26 novels, as well as works of philosophy, plays, and poetry.