A Quiet Adjustment (36 page)

More praise for

A Quiet Adjustment

“With epigrammatic brevity . . . [Markovits] offers insights of such startling acuity that they sometimes make you gasp. This is prose of extraordinary richness and subtlety, rich in nuance and irony. . . . [
A Quiet Adjustment
is] a hypnotic, impeccably researched, and dazzling glimpse into a psyche which has fascinated the world for nearly 200 years—and will no doubt continue to do so.”

—Christina Patterson,
The Independent

“In this dazzling literary mix of directness and metaphor, author Benjamin Markovits brings 19th-century England to life and in the process captures the centrifugal isolating forces that make up the tumultuous marriage between the infamous so-called libertine Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Milbank. . . . [An] exquisitely written novel.”

—Michael Leonard,
Curled Up With a Good Book (www.curledup.com)

“Most extraordinary about Markovits's achievement . . . is the sustained voice, a careful imitation of 19th-century prose that barely sounds a wrong note.”

—Stephanie Merritt,
The Observer

“This is a truly remarkable novel. Taking its time from the beginning, it gently hooks us into Annabella's world, a complex, contradictory one of personal insecurities and moral absolutes, to show, ultimately, what an abusive relationship looks like. . . . What Markovits has achieved here . . . is a startling, psychologically terrifying portrait of an individual with the capacity to destroy lives.”

—Lesley McDowell,
The Independent on Sunday

“
A Quiet Adjustment
is a lovely novel, as finely textured, nuanced, and vivid as Balzac. . . . Benjamin Markovits writes with an uncanny sensibility that is at once classic yet contemporary.”

—Katharine Weber, author of
Triangle

“
A Quiet Adjustment
achieves authenticity through the refinement of its emotional discourse. . . . Such artistry allows us to read it as both a resonantly modern novel and as a fiction whose truth has been stifled for almost 200 years.”

—Jonathan Keates,
Times Literary Supplement

“Extremely well judged and a more even handed account than any biography. Markovits's insight is more than matched by his eloquence. . . . [
A Quiet Adjustment
] sheds light on the murkiest depths of the female psyche. [Markovits's] novel proves that some lives are better suited to fiction than biography.”

—Duncan Wu,
Daily Telegraph

“The complexities of Byron's life and character are perfectly suited to the canniness of Markovits's mind, and the skill of
A Quiet Adjustment
confirms his mastery of the genre. I await with anticipation what he does next.”

—Frances Wilson,
Sunday Telegraph

“[The novel's narration] is brilliantly achieved. It asks the reader to relish its artifice . . . and the artifice repays the attention it demands.”

—John Mullan, the
Guardian

“A bevy of biographical tidbits in a tasty format.”

—
Santa Cruz Sentinel

“What makes these books remarkable is how skillfully they take all the grand and shameful exploits of their subject as the backdrop for a subtler study that centers on the many sacrifices of character and conscience made by his friends and lovers in order to be near or even just feel near his genius.”

—Robert Ontiveros,
Austin American Statesman

“A worthy addition to the literature of the Byron legend, and an excellent novel in its own right . . . an absorbing portrait of the celebrity couple and an unworkable marriage to an exhilarating but unmanageable man.”

—Toby Lichtig,
The New Statesman

“A sophisticated and intelligent novel.”

—Nick Rennison,
Sunday Times

“Markovits tells his tale with incredible style . . . an uncomplicated delight. . . . Incomparable.”

—Melissa Katsoulis,
The Times

“If you're a fan of Romantic stories—with a big ‘r' or a little one—you won't be disappointed by this novel.”

—Charity Vogel,
Buffalo News

“A spirited, controlled act of ventriloquism that . . . communicates a very modern sensibility.”

—Mark Tewfik,
Sydney Morning Herald

“[
A Quiet Adjustment
] is a study of human frailty . . . a triumph and a worthy complement to its predecessor.”

—Peg Hughes,
London Paper

“The tempestuous, abusive year of their [Byron and Milbanke's] unhappy union is chronicled in a book that astounds with its stylistic precision, written as it is in pitch-perfect 19th-century English prose by a 21st-century Texan. Markovits so deftly recreates the consciousness of a precocious 19-year-old girl coming of age in Romantic England that her devotion to the mercurial poet is as convincing as her subsequent steely emergence from his fierce hold. The novelist uses his obvious intimacy with his subject and the period as a springboard for a broader examination of notions of innocence and experience, moralities prescribed and unlearned, and questions of celebrity and ego that resonate today.”

—Fiona McCann,
Irish Times

Copyright © 2008, 2009 by Benjamin Markovits

First American Edition 2008
First published as a Norton paperback 2009

All rights reserved

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W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
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Book design by Barbara M. Bachman
Production manager: Devon Zahn

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Markovits, Benjamin.
A quiet adjustment : a novel / Benjamin Markovits.
—1st American ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-393-06700-2
1. Byron, Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron, Baroness, 1792–1860—Fiction. 2. Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788–1824—Fiction.
3. Leigh, Augusta, 1784–1851—Fiction. 4. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.A7543Q54 2008
813'.6—dc22  2008001292

ISBN 978-0-393-33022-9 pbk.
eISBN 978-0-393-34625-1

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