Julian Barnes: The Only Story, 9781787330696, C format paperback, Cape/Penguin Random House UK, pub date: 1. February 2018

Julian Barnes, next to William Boyd, is a brilliant chronicler of conditions of the human heart and an acute observer of human failures. I always look forward to his new work.  His latest book, due for publication February 1^st, opens with this sentence: Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question.

This line sets the tone for the next 224 pages where we become witness to Susan and Paul’s love story.  Paul, age nineteen, feeling bored during his semester break, decides to join the local tennis club and is paired off with Susan, age 48, to start in the doubles matches. What begins as a perfectly innocent encounter between a young man and what we today would refer to as a “cougar”, develops into a life changing relationship, both throwing caution to the wind.

It is the Fifties; Susan is trapped in a loveless marriage with Gordon Macleod and mother of two girls Paul’s age.  Despite their huge age difference, Paul and Susan are certain about the depth of their love and never doubt the seriousness of their feelings.  When Paul comes close to finishing his studies as a solicitor, they run off with each other to live together but the demands put on Paul as their relationship shifts are greater than he ever thought possible.  Barnes chronicles their relationship until Paul’s old age beyond Susan’s death.  The voice of Paul as a young and much older narrator looking back on a life lived is very moving and masterfully written.

One of the characters in the book I particularly adored is Joan, Susan’s best friend, whose dry sense of humor and no nonsense approach to life and her friend’s situation is only achieved by someone who has been beaten by life herself.