Paperback, 1 pages
Published May 24, 1988 by Plume.
This is the story of four people in late middle-age - Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia - whose chief point of contact is that they work in the same office and they suffer the same problem - loneliness. Lovingly, poignantly, satirically and with much humour, Pym conducts us through their small lives and the facade they erect to defend themselves against the outside world. There is nevertheless an obstinate optimism in her characters, allowing them in their different ways to win through to a kind of hope. Barbara Pym's sensitive wit and artistry are at their most sparkling in "Quartet in Autumn".
It was my year of reading Pym and this was the loneliest and hardest of them all. Maybe because their ages of oldness are much too close to my own age. But also the smallness and bleakness of the long years of that part of post-war London. Still great Pym, because she's Barbara Pym.
