An acute and wily satirist, Shriver handles a delicate subject with wry humor, reassuring sensitivity, and bracing realism. The current Amazon description of her 'Post-birthday World' calls it 'one of the best books about love ever written.' Should We Stay takes a different approach, to emphasize the importance of love, mutual respect, and partnership - when making real choices. Confronting one’s own demise is always a daunting exercise, but for those with more miles behind them than ahead, the notion of controlling one’s exit strategy can be an intriguing diversion from the humiliations of illness, infirmity, and irrelevance. Call this Shriver’s “13 Ways of Looking at Mortality,” for in each of those chapters she hits the reset button to imagine all the ways Cyril’s scheme might conceivably play out: One spouse dies, one doesn’t fate intervenes via random traffic accidents the Wilkinsons chose to live, then either luxuriate in a posh seniors’ enclave or struggle in a depressing elder warehouse. That their plan intersects with the UK’s Brexit debacle and the COVID-19 pandemic makes it sharply ironic. With ready access to the proper drugs, Cyril proposes a pact: on the evening of Kay’s eightieth birthday, several decades hence, they will down a handful of pills and end things on their own terms. Cyril is a respected physician with Britain’s NIH Kay, is a competent, if not passionate, nurse. 'Some books become so popular that the lucky author can thereafter churn out any old cobblers, confident in the knowledge that it will be published and find an audience.Watching their elderly parents die painful, undignified deaths, Kay and Cyril Wilkinson find themselves contemplating what their own future might hold. Do they honour their agreement? And if not, will they live to regret it? 'This sharp-elbowed satire is also a brusquely tender portrait of enduring love' Washington Postĭetermined to die with dignity, Kay and her husband Cyril - both healthy and vital medical professionals in their early fifties - make a pact: to commit suicide together once they've both turned eighty.Ī lot can change in thirty years, however.īy 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. Shriver has the magic ability to make the reader invested in the fate - fates, I should say - of her characters'Daily Telegraph
fun, smart and, perhaps because of their author's unconventional political views, unlike anything else you'll read' Financial Times Should We Stay or Should We Go by Lionel Shriver review would you kill yourself to avoid dementia James Walton enjoys the author’s provocative new novel that explores ageing and euthanasia. 'Witty and thought-provoking' Woman's Weekly
With Should We Stay or Should We Go, she's added triumphantly to their number' The Times 'Shriver said that her favourite novels are those that pack both an intellectual and emotional punch. 'Thought-provoking, timely, and extremely funny' Metro
Disgust expands and bursts into belly laughs. A best fiction book of 2021 for The Times
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