Synopses & Reviews
A novel about the 50-year friendship of two dissimilar German refugees brought over to England as children from Nazi Germany. Their friendship becomes a funny yet touching model for the ways in which human beings come to terms with the tragedy of living.
Review
"Latecomers, the story of two men whose friendship began in childhood when both were sent to England for safety during the Nazi period, opens when they are in their sixties. They have spent their lives as close friends and business partners. Hartmann, older and more resilient, is self-satisfied, pleased with their progress in life and with his flamboyant wife; Fibich, the wounded one, married to a quiet, selfless woman, struggles with indigestion and psychological problems. His 'constant companions,' a sense of loss and regret, his heavy melancholy, permeate the book. Brookner's style is low-paced, reflective. Long descriptive passages seem to prepare the reader for a scene. But, as in her other books, she never pulls back the curtain to let her characters take the stage, continually getting in the way of her own story. We see people sitting in rooms, but no one speaks. Long expository sections on individual characters read like a writer's notebook. The focus of this novel is blurred by the sense that she set out to write of the two men but was swept up by their wives, those two contrasting women who reappear in Brookner's novels, one the pampered, self-indulgent, seductive female; the other the plain, self-effacing one who serves her. Brookner's prose is flawless, her eye for detail like that of a fine artist, capturing a character, a room, a whole city, with a sweep of her pen. Her splendid Hotel Du Lac was followed by two weak novels; then came her fine, darkly provocative A Friend from England. Despite Latecomers' flaws, one awaits her next book." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)