The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of an Ending is a novel by the English writer Julian Barnes, published in 2011 and the eleventh of his novels under his own name.

The first half is school, and it is very funny: three boys discovering that being clever is a competition, the arrival of Adrian Finn, who outclasses them without trying, and the promise the friends make to remain close for life. The second half is the same story after the fact, as Tony tries to work out what he did and what he was told, and discovers that his memories have been arranged to suit him. Barnes is writing about the stories people tell to survive their own history, and the book's method is to withhold: the letter Tony wrote, the reasons, and the person his friend became are all kept from the narrator, and the reader works out what has happened only slightly ahead of him. The novel was published by Jonathan Cape in August 2011, won the Man Booker Prize that October and was shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards the following month.