Fraud
Books / Hardcover
ISBN: 0679416064 / Publisher: Random House, January 1993
After devoting the best years of her life to the care of her ailing mother, Anna Durrant, a compliant, dependable, and now aged woman disappears, in a work that explores the inner turmoil of women short-changed by life
Read More
When Anna Durrant disappears, it is months before anyone notices. Middle-aged, wealthy, and diffident, Anna has lived an ascetic life, submitting to the protective dependence of her frail mother and avoiding emotional entanglements with everyone else.Acquaintances don't think very much about Anna. Perhaps they have noticed her bland features or her patient smile. Certainly none of them has understood her complexity, the conspiracy into which she has entered, and the life she has denied herself.When her absence is reported to the police, the few people who knew Anna begin to wonder what could have happened to her: Mrs. Marsh, an elderly woman who observed Anna's intense relationship with her mother, and Lawrence Halliday, the reticent doctor whose interest in Anna may have been more than professional.As Anita Brookner's masterful story unfolds, we realize that none of the characters have been honest with one another or with themselves. To understand their connection to Anna's disturbing disappearance, they must first confront their own fraudulent behavior. What they discover is surprising and liberating, an unexpected contemporary response to the Jamesian dictum of Live all you can.Brilliantly written, filled with wisdom and insight, Fraud is Anita Brookner's triumphant portrait of a woman who finally takes charge of her own destiny.
Read Less