should we stay or should we go book review

The book is sad at times but very funny and enjoyable. The other paths are more complex and include a hilarious chapter or two showing what could happen if Kay chickens out and tells one of their children their plans only to find her and Cyril sectioned under the mental health act living in an awful nursing home.

One path is what happens if they go through with their suicide pact, another path is what happens if they don’t. The book uses a premise similar to the movie Sliding Doors in which we are shown different possible paths Kay and Cyril’s life could take. Should We Stay or Should We Go By Lionel Shriver Borough Press 266pp £18.99 order from our bookshop You might think that when a writer who has been called the ‘Cassandra of American letters’ turns her gaze to old age, physical deterioration and death, the resulting novel would be bleak. I’m a fan of the author so expected to enjoy Should We Stay Or Should We Go. 1, THE SOAP-DISH 10 June 2021, ebook, 289 pages, copy from the publisher via GET A COPY ‘Was I supposed to cry?’ Kay cast off her heavy serviceable dark wool coat, for this was one of those interminable Aprils that perpetuated the dull chill of January. When their deal is sealed in 1991, the spouses are blithely looking forward to another three decades together. Determined to die with dignity, Cyril makes a modest proposal: they should agree to commit suicide together once they’ve both turned eighty. Surely one’s own father passing should never come as such a relief?īoth healthy and vital medical professionals in their early fifties, Kay and her husband Cyril have seen too many of their elderly NHS patients in similar states of decay. Over ten years, Alzheimer’s had steadily eroded this erudite man.

Should We Stay or Should We Go by Lionel.

Shriver’s refusal to write the same novel twice remains as exhilarating as ever. When her father dies, Kay Wilkinson can’t cry. This is a supremely odd book, but an utterly original one.

Should we stay or should we go book review