Intense prose …

… on Antiquities, a novel by Cynthia Ozick. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Her new novel Antiquities, set in 1949, is a haunting chronicle of an old, embittered man named Lloyd Wilkinson Petrie. As one of the remaining trustees of the defunct Temple Academy of Boys, he has been asked to write a memoir of his time at the boarding school which has stirred up disturbing memories. He visits his late wife’s grave once a month, but never more. He is drawn to his secretary for solace. His son has decamped to California to pursue a flagging career in filmmaking. Their intermittent, empty phone conversations disquiet him.