inspiredbygrass 's review for:

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
4.0

This is a remarkable book . Written in 1938 on the verge of the second world war we are plunged into the middle of a story centered around a displaced teenager , innocent and friendless who fetched up at the home if her half brother and his wife in London .

This abrupt start sets the tone of the novel which forensically exposes the brittle emotional undercurrents if respectable well to do life in London where the adults hide behind a veneer of witty indifference and callous politeness . Portia , the teenager , is the product of an affair and her disgraced parents were banished from society and England to live a rootless existence in Europe . Her half brother is