"This witty of-the-moment, parallel universe novel explores its overarching theme of ageing alongside current issues, including COVID, Brexit and social care."
Lionel Shriver’s Should We Stay or Should We Go is an of-the-moment novel if ever there was one. With whip-smart dialogue and thought-provoking internal monologues cutting to the core of its characters, it tackles the topic of ageing through a playfully inventive structure involving twelve parallel universes and two principle protagonists who’ve made a suicide pact. Should We Stay or Should We Go boasts a smart concept that’s been cleverly executed - think Life After Life meets Sliding Doors delivered in Shriver’s distinctive style.
After watching her father’s demise during ten years of Alzheimer’s, Kay struggles to cry for him when he dies: “I feel absolutely nothing… I feel as if he’s been dead for years.” Both fifty-something NHS medical professionals, Kay and her husband, Cyril, move to discussing everything from the nature of memory to universal social care. They’ve seen far too many of their patients suffer like Kay’s dad and their discussion leads Cyril to propose they agree to a suicide pact to avoid a similar fate - they will kill themselves on turning eighty. Of course, when that time comes, they must confront their decision.
Each chapter serves up an alternate ending for the couple, with the likes of the ethics of suicide, cryogenic preservation, and ageing cures explored along the way. By turns amusing, moving and provocative, it examines the biggest of questions through personal detail, and will surely provoke thought as to how readers themselves wish to bow out.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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Not sure if there are enough superlatives to describe this book! Amazing, clever, humorous and eminently readable will have to do for a start!
Should We Stay or Should We Go is probably the best book I’ve read in the past few years!
Kay and Cyril, a nurse and GP respectively, are 50 somethings, who, after helping care for Kay’s father through his last horrendous years living with dementia, decide that rather than burden their children, and as importantly the NHS with the possibility of having to deal with similar circumstances in their old age, they will commit suicide when Kay is 80 and Cyril is 81. 80 seems to be the optimum age when the best years will be behind them and the only thing left could be pain, disability, degradation and the possibility of dementia and the horrors that entails.
We then read multiple scenarios about what happens when the protagonists reach the age they’ve decided to end their lives.... Read Full Review
An ingenious and thought-provoking read with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.
How do we negotiate our old age which, as one of the novel’s chief protagonists Kay remarks, is ‘bound to be messy, complicated and horribly down to earth’? This is the central premise of a book that I found to be by turns, funny, sad, and in parts frankly horrifying, but always enjoyable.
Kay and her husband Cyril are the central characters who take steps to manage their impending dotage but find themselves buffeted by circumstances well beyond their control. Adopting a ‘Groundhog Day’ type technique the novel presents the reader with an increasingly bizarre series of possible outcomes which keeps us turning the pages to find out what happens next.... Read Full Review
A kaleidoscope of emotions ... despair, horror, empathy, hilarity ... this book has it all!
This is an intriguing tale by Lionel Shriver. When a middle aged couple agree to a future suicide pact, the reader is treated to a range of alternative scenarios in which they go ahead with their plans ... or not. Lionel Shriver picks up on many current themes in British society and gives a sensitive portrayal of the dynamics in a longstanding relationship. There are some hilarious moments in the story though the negative scenarios she explores are quite harrowing, and you’d need to think carefully before buying this book for someone as a gift.... Read Full Review
