Ozick, Cynthia

Ozick’s 30th published work (she is in her 90s) gently evokes the loneliness, helplessness, and regrets of old age. The novel initially seems a wisp of a story, but scattered within are clues that add layers of meaning to Petrie’s faded memories, as well as the impact of his own barely acknowledged anti-Semitism on his life’s trajectory.

Ozick reworks Henry James's The Ambassadors, setting it in 1950s Paris, a seedy, impractical place for well-to-do and disaffected youth...