Leaving Home was published by Viking in 2005. Emma Roberts is a young woman in her thirties, the daughter of European Jewish refugees who settled in London after the war and built a careful, contained life in a flat in the Edgware Road. Her parents have died, and Emma inherits their flat, their savings, and their worldview — a worldview shaped by displacement, loss, and the conviction that safety lies in staying close to home, keeping a low profile, and not drawing attention to yourself.
The novel follows Emma’s gradual realization that she does not have to inherit her parents’ fears along with their property. She has a small income, no obligations, and the freedom to travel — something her parents never did, because travel meant danger, exposure, the possibility of being far from home when the next catastrophe arrived. Emma begins to make tentative moves outward: a trip to Paris, tentative friendships, the possibility of romantic attachment.
Brookner does not make Emma’s liberation easy or triumphant. The novel is about the difficulty of leaving home — not physically (Emma can afford to go anywhere) but psychologically: the guilt of abandoning the values that sustained your parents, the fear that their fears were justified, and the recognition that freedom, when it finally comes, may arrive too late to be fully enjoyed.
Collecting Leaving Home
First edition (Viking, London, 2005): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $15–$30
- Very good: $8–$15