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  • Published: 1 December 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241979518
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $25.00

Altered States



Novel from the bestselling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning Hotel du Lac

Alan Sherwood is a cautious, solitary London solicitor who finds himself obsessed by his glamorous cousin Sarah. But Sarah is self-seeking and predatory and their short-lived affair leaves Alan desolate. He finds distraction in Angela, a homely, needy acquaintance of Sarah and they drift into marriage.

Alan, however, is haunted by his memories of Sarah, and, attempting to recapture the wordless passion of their time together, he arranges a final meeting. It is an act of betrayal that changes his life for ever.

  • Published: 1 December 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241979518
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $25.00

About the author

Anita Brookner

Date: 2013-08-06
Anita Brookner, who is an international authority on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century painting, teaches at the Courtauld Institute of Art. In 1968 she was Slade Professor at Cambridge, the first woman ever to hold this position. She is the author of Watteau, The Genius of the Future; Greuze; Jacques-Louis David; and three other novels, A Start in Life, Providence and Look at Me.

Anita Brookner was born in London and, apart from several years in Paris, has lived there ever since. She trained as an art historian and taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art until 1988. Leaving Home is her twenty-third novel.

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Praise for Altered States

This is one of the best novels Brookner has written. I was mesmerised from start to finish, and it is shot through with a maturity and depth of perception that leaves you breathless with admiration.

Daily Mail

As a novelist Anita Brookner is both infinitely various and adorably unique.

Spectator

Witty, painful, often moving in their bleak truthfulness, Anita Brookner's novels show mastery in a very specific genre. This quiet novel is yet another reminder that she is a novelist whose art and understanding are much wider than the world she chronicles so chillingly.

Irish Times