Making Things Better

Facing life alone at an advanced age, Julius Herz cannot shake the sense that he should be elsewhere, doing other things. Walking through bustling streets that seem increasingly alien to him, he's confronted by life's pressing questions with an urgency he has never known before: what do we owe the people in our lives? How should we fill our days? Feeling fortified despite the growing ache in his heart, Herz finds himself also blessed with a stirring sense of exhilaration. After a lifetime of deferring to others' stronger wills, he faces a future of possibility, the only constraint the deeply ingrained habits of his mind. Profound and deeply resonant, Making Things Better explores the quandaries of aging, longing, and self-discovery with transfixing precision and spellbinding acuity.

Author: Anita Brookner
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 04/13/2004
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 8.02h x 5.26w x 0.61d
ISBN: 9781400031061

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 04/18/2004 pg. 32

About the Author
Anita Brookner was born in London and, apart from several years in Paris, has lived there ever since. She trained as an art historian and taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art until 1988.