Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

A blackly humorous story of loneliness, deception, and life in old age by one of the most accomplished novelists of the twentieth century.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon in January, the recently widowed Mrs. Palfrey moves to the Claremont Hotel in South Kensington. “If it’s not nice, I needn’t stay,” she promises herself, as she settles into this haven for the genteel and the decayed.

“Three elderly widows and one old man . . . who seemed to dislike female company and seldom got any other kind”...