Sign-In
Cart
Should We Stay or Should We Go (Large Print Edition)
Paperback
General FictionLiterary Fiction
ISBN13: 9780063118904
Publisher: Harper Large Print
Published: Jun 8 2021
Pages: 400
Weight: 0.80
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
When
her father dies, Kay Wilkinson can't cry. Over ten years, Alzheimer's had steadily
eroded this erudite man into a paranoid lunatic. Surely one's own father passing should never come as such a relief.
Both medical professionals, Kay and her husband Cyril
have seen too many elderly patients in similar states of decay. Although healthy and vital in
with dignity, Cyril makes a modest proposal. To spare
themselves and their loved ones such a humiliating and protracted decline, they
should agree to commit
suicide together once they've both turned eighty. When their deal is sealed, the spouses are blithely looking forward to another three decades
together.
But
then they turn eighty.
By turns hilarious
and touching, playful and grave, Should We Stay or Should We Go portrays
twelve parallel universes, each exploring a possible future for Kay and Cyril. Were
they to cut life artificially short, what would they miss out
on? Something terrific? Or something terrible? Might they end up
in a home? A fabulous luxury retirement village, or a Cuckoo's Nest sort of home? Might being demented end up being
rather fun? What future for humanity awaits--the end of civilization, or a
Valhalla of peace and prosperity? What if cryogenics were really to work? What
if scientists finally cure aging?
Both timely
and timeless, Lionel Shriver addresses serious themes--the compromises
of longevity, the challenge of living a long life and still going out in style--with
an uncannily light touch. Weaving in a
host of contemporary issues, from Brexit and mass migration to the coronavirus,
Shriver has pulled off a rollicking page-turner in which we never have to mourn
perished characters, because they'll be alive and kicking in the very next
chapter.
2 different editions
Also available
Also in
Literary Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales Vol. 1 (Loa #26): The Pioneers / The Last of the Mohicans / The Prairie
Cooper, James Fenimore
Hardcover
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paperback
Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977 (Loa #165): The Great American Novel / My Life as a Man / The Professor of Desire
Roth, Philip
Hardcover
The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk
St Aubyn, Edward
Paperback