"Should we stay or should we go" - Lionel Shriver

 

Is this my first book review on the blog? Quite probably. But I enjoyed this book so much that I think it deserves a shout out. 

Cyril and Kay are a happily married couple who are turning 50 in the year 1990 or thereabouts and, for reasons that become clear, agree to a suicide pact when they reach the age of 80. (He's a GP so has access to Seconal and keeps an adequate supply at the back of the fridge.)

In the first quarter of the book we learn about their lives, personalities, and opinions (especially Cyril's!). And then the build-up to Kay's 80 birthday in 2020: check-out time. But something goes wrong and their plans are kiboshed. Except then, in subsequent chapters, we get a series of alternative endings (12 I think): sometimes a tweak on the night in question, sometimes a change earlier in their lives, sometimes a technological change which affects their futures.

It's a subject that a lot of people turning 70 probably think about a fair bit: what is old age going to look like for me and those close to me? A steady decline in health with loss of function and inability to do the things we enjoy? A slow submersion into incapacity? A sudden cardiovascular catastrophe leaving us helplessly dependent?

Shriver has obviously had a lot of fun thinking up different endings - from care homes, retirement communities and secure facilities to locked-in syndrome as well as more positive outcomes (well, one anyway). She has a look at what changes a universally available anti-ageing drug might result in, and what effect that might have on human beings and culture (proper science fiction in my book) and the idea of cryogenics. Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic both feature, making the book very contemporary, and certain themes (memes?) keep recurring which introduces a comic element. She even gets in a plug for one of her previous novels.

I would happily call this book a page-turner; you simply want to see what she comes up with next. It's an easy read, but one full of ideas and of commentary on humans and relationships.