The subtlety lies in the reader remembering a minor detail 135 pages before this: …it became clear that Mr Pusey had frequently been left at home to do whatever he did while Jennifer and her mother took off for restorative trips to Cadenabbia or Lucerne or Amalfi or Deauville or Menton or Bordighera or Estoril. Said he couldn’t bear to be away from me, the silly man.

Yes, well, I owed it to my husband, she reminisces affectionately.

And she owes a great debt to her husband who provided such wealth before his death that she need never worry about money. I couldn’t do it, she tells Edith, meaning that she couldn’t travel as she does at her age without her daughter. Mrs Pusey, holidaying at the Hotel du Lac in Sweden with her adult daughter, Jennifer, as she does each year, speaks to Edith Hope, the novel’s protagonist, about the debt she owes her daughter and late husband. It can be the subtle details that reveal so much about character and, consequently, of what a book like this is about.

Hotel du lac anita brookner analysis