MURIEL SPARK, The Finishing School

“Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.” So once said the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Spark has enjoyed quite a prime herself, having just published her twenty-second novel. The Finishing School is a story of literary competition and love affairs set at an eccentric Swiss school called College Sunrise. This is a place where the rich send their wayward offspring who haven’t yet found a more traditional institution of higher learning, and it’s where novels are written (or not), and where jealous rages about said novels abound. By all reports, the aging Spark has not lost her ability to tap into the perverse, and even heading into her tenth decade, her legendary wit and insights into human psychology are as sharp as ever. Available September 21