The Golden Bowl

A wealthy American heiress and her father each marry, unaware that their spouses are former lovers, setting in motion a quiet, intricate drama of adultery, knowledge, and moral maneuvering conducted almost entirely beneath the surface of polite society. James’s final completed novel is his most demanding and dazzling, an intense study of perception, betrayal, and the terrible costs of civilized silence. Every gesture and hesitation carries weight in this chess game of the heart. Complex and profound, The Golden Bowl is the culmination of James’s art, a searching examination of marriage, power, and the painful acquisition of self-knowledge among people who never quite say what they mean.