Undue Influence (1999)

Anita Brookner's characters tend to lead spartan lives, and Claire Pitt — the protagonist of Undue Influence, Brookner's 19th novel — is no exception. Working in a London bookstore, returning home each evening to an empty flat, Claire involves herself with other people only from a safe distance (''Mostly I walked, speculating on the people I passed, on the conversations I overheard....'') and creates most of the action in her life through projections and fantasies. When she starts an affair with a seemingly innocuous widower, the ill-fated outcome seems inevitable. Brookner's spare prose only intensifies Claire's bleak isolation. B