He once lived next door to Elisabeth and her single mother, and was sometimes Elisabeth’s babysitter. All along, in the background, like the lounge music of the damned, there is a sense that a certain kind of world is coming to an end, post-Brexit. Elisabeth is charming because she’s a resolute and witty and well-read woman whose life, like an oxford cloth shirt, will not stay tucked in. This novel, all about talk, is, in the end, about how we can no longer talk to one another. “It has become a time of people saying stuff to each other and none of it actually ever becoming dialogue.

Source: New York Times February 07, 2017 22:52 UTC