Making Things Better: A Novel

The Story

The Booker Prize—winning author ofThe Bay of AngelsandHotel du Lac, “one of the finest novelists of her generation” (The New York Times), now gives us a masterly new novel about the self-discoveries that come with maturity, and the eternal question confronted by people of all ages: What will I do with the rest of my life? In this richly written, emotionally revealing novel, Brookner once again “works a spell on the reader” (The Washington Post Book World), as a man finds himself contemplating the difficult life questions: How is it all going to work out? What shall I do before the end? As Herz ponders proposing marriage to an old friend, making a trip to Paris to see a favorite painting, selling his home, moving, starting afresh, he knows that he must do something with his remaining years. But what? Brilliant, funny, profound,Making Things Bettercaptures the quandaries of aging: the misunderstanding of an increasingly modern, alien world; awkward conversations with passersby; even more awkward encounters with longtime friends and acquaintances; the anxieties posed by age and uncertainty—and the bizarre, magnificent self-knowledge that perhaps only age, reflection, and experience can bring.