Sybille Bedford, A Legacy (Counterpoint, $16). All of the adjectives Sybille Bedford’s writing brings to mind belong to the same family: sharp, acute, penetrating, piercing, and so on. In her most famous novel, two marriages, inauspicious in different ways, bind together the fates of three families in late 18th- and early 19th-century Germany. How could it have taken me this long to discover Bedford? Why isn’t a writer with her observational powers, slicing wit, and historical grasp–a woman whose work no less a cutting edge than Dorothy Parker found “almost terrifyingly brilliant”–better known? The curious can start with A Legacy, whose certainties and mysteries stand in perfect balance (OGIC).
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
