Latecomers - Softcover

Sent to London as refugees during the second world war, Thomas Hartmann and Thomas Fibich become lifelong friends and eventually business partners. Over the years, Hartmann has settled for a life of pleasure, seldom disturbed by his difficult past; Fibich endures a life of gloom, his mind never straying from the last sight he had of his mother, fainting on a railway platform. But both are troubled by the same profound and unfocused longing, and as they approach old age, the need to exorcise and understand the ghosts of their past.

“She has never written a better novel. There are only inadequate words (except her own) in which to convey how searchingly gentle it is, how almost unbearably moving.”
RUTH RENDELL, 'Observer'

“The best novel Anita Brookner has written since the Booker Prize-winning 'Hotel du Lac'. It marks an advance into new territory, while preserving all her old sharp intelligence and shrewdness.”
SUSAN HILL, 'Good Housekeeping'

“A book of such charm, such depth, such poignant detail and compassionate understanding that, reading it, you may find tears mingling with laughter.”
'Daily Mail'

“Anita Brookner has proved herself to be so fine a novelist that she deserves to be judged in a class of her own.”
'Daily Telegraph'

“All the satisfactions to be found in her best work are here.”
'Sunday Times'