Two middle aged men were brought as children out of Nazi Germany and parted from their parents forever. One forgets all memories while the other is a damaged person, a man of sorrows.

Anita Brookner's first novel available as a Penguin Essential for the first time. 'Dr Weiss at forty knew that her life had been ruined by literature.' Ruth Weiss an academic is beautiful intelligent and lonely. Studying the heroines of Balzac in order to discover where her own childhood and adult life has gone awry she seeks not salvation but enlightenment. Yet in revisiting her London upbringing her friendships and doomed Parisian love affairs she wonders if perhaps there might not be a chance for a new start in life . . .

Although Ruth Weiss at forty is the picture of a scholarly professor of English, she questions if the literature she escaped to in her youth has benefited her.