by Barbara Pym
First published 1991
Tom Mallow returns from fieldwork to London's anthropology community, where he slips back into his arrangement with Catherine Oliphant, a journalist who knows him too well. Catherine sees through Tom's charm, but when he starts pursuing Deirdre Swan, a younger woman with romantic illusions, Catherine finds herself competing for a man she's not sure she wants. The anthropologists around them study human behavior professionally, yet they stumble through their own relationships just like everyone else. French researchers observe the British, London academics puzzle over village customs, and elderly neighbors dissect each other's social rituals over tea. Tom drifts between the two women while the academic world buzzes with its own petty dramas. Pym watches these observers of human nature fail to understand themselves, weaving together stories of love, loss, and the gap between how people study life and how they actually live it.
Genres: 20th-century, anthropology, academia, academic
Vibes: character-driven, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: love-triangle, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London
Period: 20th-century
256 pages · Paperback · Plume