The Debut

An “almost flawless novel” (People) about a quiet scholar who is convinced that her life has been ruined by literature and that she must make a new start in life. Since childhood, Ruth Weiss had been escaping from life into books, and from the attentions of her eccentric parents into the gentler warmth and company of friends and lovers. Now at forty years old, an academic devoted to the study of Balzac, she believes that literature has ruined her life and that she must once again, make a fresh start. “Lively, filled with gentle humor” (Miami Herald) this is an elegant and wry novel that will stay with you long after the final page is turned.

Anita Brookner was the author of several novels, including Fraud, Dolly, Brief Lives, Incidents in the Rue Laugier, and the Booker Prize winner Hotel du Lac. She was the first female Slade Professor at Cambridge University and is well-known as an international authority on eighteenth-century painting.