28 NOVEMBER 1987, Page 34

Anita Brookner

Not a spectacular year for fiction, although many big names were represented. I found them a bit short-winded, with the excep- tion of two very different examples: Philip Roth (The Counterlife, Cape, £10.95) and Barbara Vine '(Fatal Inversion, Viking, £10.95). Both authors convinced me of their seriousness, and I do like a novel to deal with the stronger emotions. I can't say that anything was overrated, except by the publishers. I suspended judgment by start- ing to re-read Trollope's political novels, and when I've done that I'm going to give myself a course of Simenon. He writes about despair like nobody else.