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The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
In The Sense of an Ending, Tony Webster has lived a dull life, and alone in his sixties, he doesn't have much more than his memories. As a young man, his first serious relationship was with a young woman named Veronica. He'd spent an uncomfortable weekend with her family, and she broke up with him soon after. Upon learning this, Tony's friend Adrian asked him for permission to ask Veronica out. A few years later, Adrian committed suicide. Tony's present life is upended when he discovers he's been left a bequest by Veronica's mother: Adrian's diary. But Veronica is unwilling to part with it. Tony is forced to consider that perhaps he's misremembered the events of over forty years earlier. Julian Barnes' novella has received positive reviews (and the Booker Prize) with the Los Angeles Times saying, "The Sense of an Ending packs into so few pages so much that the reader finishes it with a sense of satisfaction more often derived from novels several times its length. The emotional roller coaster ride that Tony Webster has taken with us perched on his shoulder has such heft and intensity that we feel we too have truly experienced his life-altering revision of what he mistakenly believed to be a humdrum existence."
