The Sense of an Ending

by Julian Barnes

First published 2011

Tony Webster drifts through a comfortable retirement, his youthful connections long forgotten. When a mysterious inheritance arrives—a diary from a dead friend's mother—he's forced to confront a narrative he believed he understood. The document triggers painful memories of a college friendship, a lost love, and a suicide that haunted his younger years. As Tony investigates, he discovers his own carefully constructed memories are unreliable, potentially concealing a devastating act of betrayal. Each revelation threatens to dismantle the quiet life he's carefully maintained, challenging everything he knows about himself and his past.

Genres: literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary, 21st-century

Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking

Tropes: unreliable-narrator

Period: 21st-century

150 pages · Hardcover · Jonathan Cape

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