A Distant Shore - (Man Booker Prize 2003)

Thirty years ago Pink Floyd sang ’...hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way’. There is a literary genre that focuses on sadness, disappointment and unfulfilled lives, which is particularly English: I’m thinking of Anita Brookner, Philip Larkin, Morrissey and others. The French have a way of making social isolation sexy, but both approaches have their merits.