Beatrice considers herself delicate and sensitive, idle and confused. A piano accompanist forced into early retirement, her taste in books reveals an unashamed and romantic desire to be rescued by the ideal man. But Beatrice's only family is her orderly and independent sister Miriam. Miriam has known a loveless marriage, but unlike Beatrice she has also known love: both the kind based on desire and the kind based on esteem. In this, her eighteenth novel, Anita Brookner weaves a heart-wrenching tale of loneliness and friendship, fate and opportunity. In FALLING SLOWLY Brookner is at the top of her form as a twentieth century moralist.