Entertainingly irascible and curmudgeonly, thin-skinned and misanthropic, Dr. James Darke lives alone after the death of his wife, feigning deafness to avoid conversing with the handyman, firing a cleaning lady who's become too bubbly, fuming with upper-crust British prejudices, and behaving badly toward the neighbors' barking dog. He was ever thus—as a schoolmaster, he got in trouble for keeping notes on his students' various defects as a way to remember their names—but now he's worse. He's even told George, the only person he could consider a friend, to collect his mail and then toss it, and he's not speaking to daughter Lucy, whom he nevertheless recalls tenderly throughout the narrative. He's also started keeping a coming-of-old-age journal, not an entirely bad idea. But when George shows up, pleading with him to respond to his daughter's increasingly distraught letters, Darke does something of a turnaround, getting past Lucy's initial anger and frustration to bond with his grandson. If that sounds sentimental, it isn't; this is a tough-minded and bracing novel about life's final moments from rare book dealer and academic Gekoski, writing his first novel, and it's a success. VERDICT A page-turning portrait of the most difficult character you'll be glad to claim as a friend.

Gekoski's debut novel (following the literary history work Nabokov's Butterfly), about a professor isolating himself following his wife's death, begins enticingly but ultimately falters. James Darke, retired literature professor, looks back on his courtship with and marriage to his wife, Suzy; the birth of their daughter, Lucy, and the evolution of their relationship; and his vocation as a teacher. Darke has quarantined himself from the outside world in the wake of Suzy's death from cancer. His only meaningful encounters during this time are with Bronya, a maid hired to clean his home; these are entertaining, especially when Bronya shows a penchant for Dickens, one of Darke's favorites. Aside from his memories, the bulk of the novel comprises Darke's trenchant observations about life and death, education, analysis, and such pillars of literature as T.S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats. Though Darke's ruminations about literature, his sexual awakening, and how he coped with Suzy's suffering are high points, the book falters when Dark finally breaks his confinement to reconnect with Lucy and her son. Readers may also tire of his lengthy descriptions of his depression and his curmudgeonly view of life. (Nov.)