I don’t know if you’ve read much Barabara Pym. I haven’t, and in fact I’ve read only one other of her novels, The Sweet Dove Died, which came out the year following this one. I mention this because her career basically worked in two different segments–from 1950 to 1961, in which she published six novels including her most famous Excellent Women and then again from 1977-1980 where she published three more, but with that long gap in between. Additionally, she died of cancer in 1980, and her final three novels seem to spend a lot of time dealing not just with mortality, which they do, but also with aging, and specifically aging as an unmarried woman.
This is a particular point that grabbed me from just reading the back cover of this one: that a reviewer (in 1977) felt perfectly comfortable calling her “Miss Pym”.
I group her in with other writers like Barbara Comyns, Elizabeth Taylor, Muriel Spark, Sybille Bedford…as funny, dry-witted, and so smart in their writing, if not also well-known or as loved as they deserved.
This novel is about a group of four friends who work in an office and share in this intimate, if overtly professional space. All are in late middle age/cusping old age. As they slowly drift apart by way of retirement, (late) marriage, and death, they start to realize the preciousness of their various and collective experiences.
It’s ultimately a funny and sweet novel, but also one that takes an honest and sober look at aging.
(Photo: https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/quartet-autumn/author/barbara-pym/)