Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Brookner, Anita (Vol. 134) - Heller McAlpin （review date 9 February 1997）

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Heller McAlpin （review date 9 February 1997）

SOURCE: “Solitary Man,” in Los Angeles Times Book Review, February 9, 1997, p. 4.

[In the following review, McAlpin depicts the writing in Brookner's Altered States “as supple as ever,” but further states that “it's her subject that is tiresome.”]

Once again, in her 16th novel, the Booker Prize-winning author of Hotel du Lac has written a minutely observed study of a solitary individual. Her narrator, Alan Sherwood, is a solicitor, self-described as “stolid and prudent and slightly behind the times” yet “capable of passion.” He is very close to his mother, a “sensitive and civilized” woman who married an older man, the father of two of her friends, and was left widowed with her young son at an early age.

Altered States focuses on the turning point in Alan's life, when his options close off just as his mother sensibly succumbs to the...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. William McPherson （review date 10 February 1985）
   2. Robert Jones （review date 20 September 1985）
   3. Patricia Waugh （essay date 1989）
   4. Jonathan Yardley （review 12 March 1989）
   5. John Updike （review date 1 May 1989）
   6. Rosemary Dinnage （review date 1 June 1989）
   7. Phillip Lopate （review date 11 March 1990）
   8. Joyce Reiser Kornblatt （review date 21 July 1991）
   9. Carolyn Cooke （review date 9 September 1991）
   10. Jane Smiley （review date 22 March 1992）
   11. Constance Casey （review date 12 April 1992）
   12. Ursula Hegi （review date 10 January 1993）
   13. Gisèle Marie Baxter （essay date Summer 1993）
   14. Frank Kermode （review date 19 June 1993）
   15. David Galef （essay date Winter 1994）
   16. Jonathan Yardley （review date 9 January 1994）
   17. Carol Kino （review date 20 February 1994）
   18. John Bayley （review date 18 June 1994）
   19. Linda Simon （review date 8 January 1995）
   20. Frederick Busch （review date 22 January 1995）
   21. Hermione Lee （review date 30 January 1995）
   22. Ann Fisher-Wirth （essay date Spring 1995）
   23. Teresa Waugh （review date 17 June 1995）
   24. Hilary Mantel （review date 14 January 1996）
   25. Anne Roiphe （review date 16-30 December 1996）
   26. Deborah Mason （review date 26 January 1997）
   27. Heller McAlpin （review date 9 February 1997）
   28. Max Egremont （review date 7 June 1997）
   29. Jacqueline Carey （review date 18 January 1998）
   30. Aránzazu Usandizaga （essay date Summer 1998）
   31. Claire Messud （review date 31 January 1999）
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright