Should We Stay or Should We Go

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

their early fifties, the couple fears what may lie ahead. Determined to die

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.