Banville's captivating writing style leads the way into a personal history of loving and grieving, two stories at opposite ends of a life. Banville's main character, Max Morden, ponders how well he's known anyone and what has been relevant in his relationships--he is struggling, during this hard time, to describe the eternal substance of his past relationships, what feelings he's taken away, which memories he will cherish forever.

Banville gives Morden's perceptions and vulnerabilities a well-developed history as the narrative recalls the circumstances of Morden's dismal childhood. There was his strange early friendship with a girl from a different class and then the sudden loss of that one joy, the disappearance of his father and subsequent economic and emotional turmoil of his teenaged years with his mother, then his relationship with Anna, his wife, and then her death. And at last, there is his relationship with his daugher, Claire, who is trying very hard to be a relevant character in her father's life.

Morden does not magically recover at the end of the book, but rather enters another phase of his life, as he continues to cope with the way things are now and begins to sort out the "what now" question. Banville has taken on a very difficult subject and made it appealingly readable.