The Rest of Our Lives

by Benjamin Markovits

What's left when your kids grow up and leave home?

When Tom Layward's wife had an affair he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest daughter turned eighteen. Twelve years later, while driving her to Pittsburgh to start university, he remembers his pact, and keeps driving West.

He is also on the run from his own health issues, and the fact that he's been put on leave at work after students complained about the politics of his law class - something he hasn't yet told his wife.

So, after dropping Miriam off, he keeps driving, with the vague plan of visiting various people from his past - an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son - on route, maybe, to his father's grave in California.

An unforgettable road trip novel, The Rest of Our Lives beautifully explores the nuance and complications of a long term marriage.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Contemporary, Book Club, Family, Road Trip

216 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 25, 2025

Reviews

[Henk · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I could have done without this" the main character thinks 2/3 into this book, and I full heartedly concur with him. Like the worst Woody Allen movie in writing. Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker.
He doesn’t really figure in my life these days but I’m going to talk about him anyway.

This book feels like Jane Austen in the worst way, in the sense that every character is introduced not by the salary in pounds per year but through their academical achievements and career, in the most unironic manner by the main character. Tom is an older man, 55, and a law professor, looking back at his marriage with Amy. There is a lot of resentment pervading the narrative, around an affair 12 years ago, about the raising of Miri, their daughter and about Amy not having a job. Then Tom also gets cancelled due to woke, in his own unreflective rendition of the facts. I would rather think his consulting on the side, taking up an expert opinion role for someone he used to work for, is also an ethical conundrum.

The Rest of Our Lives is a bit meandering told, in a voice that is close to but not fully curmudgeon. Besides complaining (over and over again) of his wife cheating over a decade ago he goes on and on about all the social house calls he does with his “friends”, people whose kid go to Brown (8% acceptance rate) versus his own daughter going to Carnegie Mellon (18% acceptance rate) and how visitors bring along a bottle of Pol Roger (not sure if in Tom's book this is an acceptable champagne or not). The opening of the second chapter is so inelegant, some name dropping of someone who did a PhD at Harvard in a confusing manner that doesn’t have any relevance to the narrative, and is rather exemplary of how Benjamin Markovits seems to write.
The "friends" of the main character are people who go to their club where a jacket is required, say to him lunch there is more expensive than he might expect but they’ll cover it, and have an illicit affair with their student. Or they want to start a class action lawsuit for white people getting discriminated in basketball. What is this supposed to say about the main character through which we perceive the world of the novel?

You’re a very frustrating person to live with his rather neurotic wife mentions near the end of the book and I wholeheartedly agree based on 200 pages. Besides the end of the book, which is quite accurately described (except for introducing a Dutch female student called Betje, which is something even my grandmother wouldn’t have as a first name) based on my own medical experiences, I didn’t care about anything I read and this was dangerously close to getting 1.5 stars rounded down.

Some quotes and further thoughts below but I hope I get this book out of my system sooner rather than later.

Quotes:
“You’re on the wrong side of history.”
“I guess that’s true.”

We don’t really communicate at that level anymore.

At some level everything you feel or think is a kind of taking sides.

We worked our way through all ten seasons, watching the show get steadily worse. People turning into caricatures, but maybe this is what happens to people.

I liked to think of myself as lower-middle class

I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.

He doesn’t really figure in my life these days but I’m going to talk about him anyway.

I’m just… a little adrift right now. I can’t seem to get a grip on anything.

I’m sorry if I got it wrong tonight. I’m getting a lot of things wring right now.

Straight men who can’t communicate and then just go play basketball, watch baseball and drink beer or drive

You worry because it makes you feel better about yourself.

I never had a problem you couldn’t solve by going to the gym.

You reach a point in your life where you don’t want strangers in your life anymore.

There’s almost nothing you can’t do to yourself, that’s what I thought

We’re not really communicating right now - my god, are you dramatic teenagers or something?

You can talk too much about everything, I don’t know if it helps

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5, rounded up.

Booker 2025 #6 for me to have read.

Had never read any Markovits, and bloody unlikely to read any of his other tomes, past or future. If there were any truth in advertising, this SHOULD have been entitled The Most Boring, Whitest Guy in America Takes a Road Trip.

The author is kind of the male equivalent of Anne Tyler, writing comforting, though rather dull books about 'ordinary' people and their very common lives. [But hey, Booker panel - Tyler herself, who inexplicably keeps getting nods, wrote an eligible book this year - why didn't you just rubber stamp THAT one?!]

In searching other reviews, I came upon this beauty for his previous (award-winning) book You Don't Have to Live Like This, and if you just change the name of the MC and the page number, it's exactly how I felt about THIS one:

Our first person narrator Greg Marnier is a massive Olympic-gold-medal-standard dweeb and overdescribes his daily life in hair-tearing facepalming detail. So achingly dull is most of this ... that many readers have launched it at the wall even before the statutory 100 pages amidst cries of “I can’t stand this no more” or “I’d rather have my face eaten by one of them revolting face eating alien things from that movie we saw last month”. If only these readers would have stuck around till page 172, which is when something actually happens. I too was one of those readers emitting muffled groans and sotto voce expletives and I was on the tippytoes of writing yet another famously cruel one star denunciation when I had an attack of perverseness.

It takes FOREVER for this to achieve minimal liftoff, and then we are just subjected to a standard issue male midlife crisis, that results in the aforementioned road trip, where various figures from MC Tom Layward's past emerge, none of them terribly interesting, amidst interminable games of pickup basketball (... Tom envisions writing a tome about such games, although there would seem to be even LESS of an audience for that book than this one).

Not only is the story being told plodding, but it is rendered in the flattest prose imaginable. And the final quarter of the book suddenly morphs into a maudlin and rather quesy medical drama, but by that time I was kind of hoping for Tom's swift and imminent demise.

So why 2 stars instead of one? Well, as the book went along, I grudgingly found a few glimmers of interest; it was short enough I knocked it off in one day - and it has probably the coolest cover of any of the Booker Baker's Dozen! And I reserve 1 star for the truly unreadable, which this marginally skirts. But once again, HOW could the judges include this mediocrity when so many worthier novels were tossed asunder? (... where's Ripeness? Muckle Flugga? Our Evenings?!!)

[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Update : Now shorlisted for the Booker Prize 2025

This is the sort of okay book that you don’t want to find on a Booker longlist, but you understand why it was chosen. It deals with the most fashionable subject at the moment (see how Adolescence won everything at the Emmys while being just an okay show): the crisis of masculinity. For me, it didn’t say anything new or in an interesting way.

I also understand the comparisons with All Fours, but the protagonist here is so much less compelling. His interests were just boring, and the author seemed too afraid to say anything meaningful about his chosen themes, such as wokism or racism.

Anyway, I’m gonna repeat myself. Despite the criticism, this is an okay book. Hopefully, the win was simply making it onto the longlist.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a donation to my Little Free Library Shed. I hadn’t seen anyone in my Goodreads community talking about this book or adding it to their TBR lists, so I went in blindly. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I was curious to see where this story—and Tom—might take me.

I knew almost nothing about the author until I read—aside from that he’s an accomplished writer, a former professional basketball player, a current University Professor; and, that he likes to write stories that draw on themes of family, identity, and the quiet drama of domestic life especially in this novel.

Now… on to the book.

What are you doing with the rest of your life?

Tom, a 55-year-old law professor, invites readers on a road trip that could go anywhere—and maybe lead somewhere unexpected. The kids are grown, his last child is off to college, and a broken marriage waits at home. So off he goes—directionless, yet moving forward. After twelve years of waiting to find himself, does it really matter where he goes next?

Before the journey begins in earnest, we glimpse Tom’s past: his marriage, family dynamics, and career frustrations. He comes across as low-key and matter-of-fact, a demeanor that others often misinterpret. “You don’t feel anything about anything,” his wife tells him—words that quietly capture his emotional landscape.

This early section is a slow burn, at times a little frustrating as conversations, and side characters drift in and out. But once Tom finally pulls onto the open road, the journey truly begins.

Tom observes everyone—including himself—with quiet attentiveness, making this restless road trip feel reflective, filled with memories, regrets, and the faint possibility of change. Something near the end stirred a deep empathy in me, leaving the final pages lingering far longer than I expected.

Will other readers feel it too? And will Tom find his way back to his wife—or somewhere else entirely? (No spoilers from me.)

Sometimes the longest journeys aren’t measured in miles, but in the quiet moments when a life is forced into focus.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 stars

[Laura Cutmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Nobody tells you what an intense experience loneliness is, how it has a lot of variations..."

Let me start by saying I didn't know what to expect from this book. A Jazzy cover, a title implying a romance, few reviews online for me to pre-empt a narrative. None of that mattered when I jumped in to this book.

Following the life of protagonist Tom as he drops his daughter at college and takes himself on a long trip across country meeting friends of old and strangers at basketball courts - this novel plunges straight into male mental health and what it's like getting by when there's nobody there who knows what's happening inside your head.

I freaking loved this book for how matter-of-fact and easy to read it was whilst simultaneously touching on deep topics and the tragedy of your life passing you by.

Highly recommended if you want to read something real and something that will resonate.

[Nina (ninjasbooks) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t feel like emotionally invested in this.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Brits got their hands on Ben Markovits’s new novel, “The Rest of Our Lives,” back in March. They raved. We eavesdropped. They shortlisted it for the Booker Prize. We checked international postage rates.

Given that Markovits was born in the United States and that “The Rest of Our Lives” describes an American road trip, it hardly seems fair that just because he has lived in England for decades we had to wait nine extra months to read it.

But sink into this wry, poignant story and all is forgiven.

The narrator, 55-year-old Tom Layward, identifies as “a slightly sadder older guy.” He doesn’t waste any time clearing his throat. The opening sentence pokes at the rotting cavity at the center of his marriage: “When our son was twelve years old, my wife had an affair.” That brief tryst was over before his wife, Amy, confessed. She didn’t want a divorce. “She just wanted some kind of reaction,” Tom says, “... but that’s not really my style.” Instead, they both fell into a long period of brooding, of mourning — enduring what he calls their “C-minus marriage.”

As a wedding shower gift, this novel shouldn’t be your first choice.

“If you continue to have illusions, that’s your fault,” Tom says — not to his wife but to us, which is part of the problem. “So if you stay married it’s because you’ve accepted that this is what they’re like, and what your life with them is like, and you stop expecting them to do or give you things you know perfectly well they’re unlikely to do or give you. It’s like being a Knicks fan.”

For middle-aged, passive-aggressive men playing out the clock in dismal marriages, reading “The Rest of Our Lives” may feel like performing open-heart surgery on themselves. But anyone willing to....

To read the rest of this review go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still unclear about my feelings toward this book. It started off with a definite premise - a man whose youngest child has gone to college has to decide whether or not to leave the wife who cheated on him 10 years before. He had always told her that he would stay until the children left. So after he drives the girl to college he just keeps on driving with the pretext, to himself, that he is merely going to see old college buddies and his son.

As the journey continues, however, his health begins to suffer and his plans become even less coherent.

I think it was the second half of the book that had me confused because it seemed to be all about the things he didn't want rather than making any real decisions. His inability to even care for himself became quite monotonous.

There is also quite a bit of narrative about sports (especially basketball) none if which I understood or had an interest in.

So though it started off interesting, I'm afraid I got rather bored towards the end. None of the characters were particularly sympathetic either - the husband was apathetic, the wife was whiny, the son was judgemental and the daughter appeared divorced from relationships with any of them. There's also some casual racism that goes unchallenged and I found that part hard to read.

I simply picked the wrong book. It wasn't for me.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Faber & Faber for the advance review copy.

[Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Twelve years ago, lawyer Tom Layward chose to stay with his wife after her affair, deciding that when his youngest child, daughter Miriam, left for college, he would reevaluate his marriage and potentially leave Amy. The time has now come to drop Miriam off, and after he does so, he just keeps driving west.

The novel chronicles his trip across the country and into himself as he deals with some increasingly serious health concerns, a possible new court case he doesn't have the energy for, various pick-up basketball games, and a plentitude of strangers and old acquaintances he sees along his drive. Told in a close 1st person voice of a man beginning to recognize the resurfacing of past problems he's suppressed, the novel reckons with big themes of family and marriage, complicity, ambition, achievement, and what success really looks like when looking back on life.

I found Tom to be a delightfully sincere, if not sometimes oblivious, character to follow. He seems to be doing his best; he's been wronged, but recognizes when his own shortcomings have led to further difficulties. He's at a turning point in his life, and Markovits does a great job of presenting him without falling into stereotypes/cliches.

The writing in this is simple but profound. There were so many ways that Tom internalizes his feelings and has conversations with himself that I found relatable. He's more comfortable dealing with his problems alone, or so he thinks; and over the course of the road trip, begins to understand how to open up, rely on others, be in community, and move forward instead of constantly looking back.

I will also say, without spoiling anything, there is a turn in the last third of the novel that dealt with topics very close to my heart. Especially in relation to a father/son dynamic in a particular locale that I found quite effective and moving; I know for me it brought up a lot of old memories and feelings that maybe it won't quite have the same effect on for others, but that is the beauty of literature! This story felt, in some ways, tailored to me as both a reader, a son, a man, and an American.

Though this is on the Booker Prize shortlist, I don't necessarily see it winning and am fine if it doesn't. Nevertheless, I am so glad this was nominated if only to put it on my radar. I had quite low expectations because so many felt differently about it than I did (which is fine, but just goes to show you can't always know how a book will work for you until you give it a shot), and I'm happy to say I loved this one and will be thinking about it for quite a while.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025
3.5
"Is the idea of healing to get you back to the way you used to be or to turn you into something new?"

When Tom Layward learned that his wife Amy had an affair, he vowed to leave her after his youngest child left home for university. Twelve years later, suspended from his job as a law professor, he dropped his daughter off in Pittsburgh and kept driving west. Despite signs of poor health, Tom begins a road trip that links past and present, visiting his brother, an old girlfriend, a college buddy, and his son. By crafting the novel in the first person, Markovits provides access to Layward's inner, if somewhat muddled, world.

The Rest of Our Lives is low-key for an American road novel. Layward appears distant from the events of his life and views himself as blameless for everything that has gone wrong: his suspension from his job, his wife's infidelity, and his poor health. The trip becomes his mechanism for
regaining control without confronting his problems.

I liked the novel. It's short, moves quickly, and keeps the reader in the moment. Markovitz is a polished writer and is adept at blending humour with sorrow. Despite its strengths, I was surprised that it made the Booker shortlist as it doesn't break new ground in content, style, or structure. Its inclusion in the shortlist made me realize how little I understand the judges' criteria. Booker lists aside, I recommend The Rest of Our Lives. It's a great read.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

After a bit of time to marinate, I've decided that the reason this didn't really work for me was that it felt like 3 separate books and I didn't like all of them. There were moments when I liked this much more than my star rating suggests; specifically the first third of the novel which I found to be quite a thoughtful but light consideration of moving out of the phase of active parenting. At that point, this felt sort of Nick Hornby-esque and although it wasn't giving BOOKER vibes, I was enjoying it. I found the second 2 thirds a bit less coherent and compelling and the storytelling lost some of its charm. Basically, a bit too disjointed for me.

[Andy Weston · Rating 2 out of 5]

Try as I might, I cannot see what is interesting, or entertaining about this sort of contemporary American writing.

But I was persuaded to read it, my first Markovits, on it making the Booker Longlist; surely, I thought, this must have some appeal. But I’ve done that before, tried to broaden my horizon with such contemporary American novels, get away from what I usually read, and find out why other people, notably here, the judges, think so highly of it.

It wasn’t just that I found the characters dull and couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss about what they got up to, but also I found it almost offensive at times in the language used.

The only positive I can find is that it was, mercifully, quite short.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. I can’t stop thinking about it. A dad drops his kid off at college then just carries on driving, visiting old friends from his youth on the way. I do love a road trip story and this fits that bill but it is also so much more. It’s heartfelt and poignant and I now want to read everything this guy has ever written!!

[Hugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025

My first real disappointment of this year's list. Not saying this is a bad book, but its main protagonist never really engaged my sympathy and I got a little bored. It is also a very American book.

[Jillian B · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Tom’s wife has an affair, he resolves to leave her…as soon as their youngest child has graduated high school. Twelve years later, with his daughter finally off to college, Tom takes a road trip to plan his next steps.

No one was more surprised than me by how much I absolutely loved this book. I mostly read female authors, and “moody, middle-aged guy finds himself” books are very much not my thing. But this one just worked so well. Tom is flawed but likeable, and the way he perceives the people around him is incisive without being cruel. The class dynamics (Tom’s wife is from a very wealthy family while he’s a law professor with lower middle class roots) and shifting family roles in this book feel so true to life. The ending was not what I expected, but I think it was a perfect way to end the story.

If you like family dramas infused with a bit of humour, like Long Island Compromise, you’ll enjoy this book.

[Gabriela Pistol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it is a (underappreciated and misunderstood) sensitive, deep look into the human soul, with empathy and compassion for our flawed and changing nature.
I can't believe people complain about "all the basketball references" (really, like 4 or 5 paragraphs 🙄) and miss all the clarity with which he depicts complicated feelings. I loved it and I think he fully deserves to be on The Booker short list and I do intend to read more of his work.

[Nat K · Rating 3 out of 5]

*** Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize ***

”I'm just a middle-aged guy, getting older.”

Tom Leyward doesn't recognise the face that peers at him from the bathroom mirror in the morning. Puffy, with eyes leaking water, which take hours to settle. When he gets up too quickly he gets head spins. His body doesn't correlate with how he feels in his mind. It's all gone by too fast.

After dropping his daughter off to start college, on a whim Tom starts his own road trip. Reminiscing over the past, and trying to figure out the present. His marriage to his wife Amy is hanging by a thread, and he's unsure if he's really left her or not.

”These things happen-families end up a certain way.”

Visiting old friends, colleagues, his estranged younger brother and girlfriend from his college days, Tom is trying to figure it all out.

We go backwards and forwards as he drives along, learning about his childhood and dreams of the future as a young man.

It's interesting to be inside the head of a white middle-aged male, as it seems lately they're generally tarnished with the same brush, and tend to be overlooked in comparison to others in regards to their own fears about ageing and wondering if they can still be loved or feel something toward others.

”Nobody tells you what an intense experience loneliness is, how it has a lot of variations."

I was surprised to enjoy it as much as I did, and for this Booker read it was a story I got more into as the book progressed.

I'm not sure what the criteria is for a book to be longlisted for the Booker Prize? This seems to maybe be an unusual choice to be included. Though perhaps for the very fact of its ordinariness - being simply about the grind of life - that it was nominated.

3.5 ⭐️ I’d consider reading more of his books if I stumbled upon them.

Book 7 of my Booker Prize longlist odyssey. That's as much as I could fit in before the shortlist is announced shortly.

Postscript! Wednesday 24.Sept.25
Now shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025. Which I'm more than a little perplexed by. While I enjoyed this, I don’t know what the criteria was for it to move to the shortlist, while other books which I felt had more to offer were left behind.

[Ace · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stopped at 54%

[Joy D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tom Layward is a 55-year-old law professor who decided twelve years ago that he would leave his marriage to Amy (due to her infidelity) once their youngest child, Miriam, turned eighteen. After dropping Miriam off at college, instead of heading home, Tom keeps driving with only a vague idea of his destination. He ends up visiting several people from his past. Tom is taking forced leave due to complaints that have arisen from his course on hate crime. He is also dealing with health issues. This “road trip” novel relates a man’s midlife crisis and the complexities of his long-term marriage.

It is written in first person by Tom as he tries to find himself. It is structured in three parts. The first two-thirds are bland (bordering on boring) and appear to be there only to set up the final third. There are many ancillary characters that remain under-developed and add very little. It briefly touches on a currently relevant topic but never explores it in any depth. It is written in an informal colloquial manner and filled with references to product brand names. These types of books about a man’s existential crisis can be hit or miss with me, and this one is more of a miss.

[Sarah Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well we have ourselves a cuckoo in the nest for I don’t know why on earth this is on the Booker Longlist. Angry white man having himself a wee mid life crisis, whinges for 200 odd pages in a stream of consciousness sort of a narrative, and goes on a small road trip that had as much point as the book. In that it had none. I have little nice to say. The font is alright.
I also don’t know why it was necessary to know everyones height, there’s a fair bit of oh she’s gained a few pounds and it’s just incredibly meh. Basically Tom’s wife Amy cheated on him a number of years ago and they stayed together but the intention was that he might, maybe, possibly leave her once their youngest daughter goes off to college. Miri goes off to college and Tom after her driving her to her new dorm takes an impromptu road trip across some of America for a few days. He meets up with people from his past and there’s a theme of all their lives not quite living up too expectation and rather them having to compromise or settle to an extent. This maybe helps Tom reframe the life he had with Amy and that actually it was decent enough, but also he seems to think the world owes him something and to be honest he can just fuck right off. Pretty much everyone is rich and the privilege be hanging out of them and yet somehow chips on shoulders about how hard they all have things. There’s an underlying health condition in which he often wakes up with a swollen face and leaky eyes and to be honest I was just hoping he’d keel over dead so I wouldn’t need to read anymore. Very no. And yet wouldn’t be in the least surprised if it ends up on the shortlist. 1/5

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Rebecca]

THIS is one of the six best books of the past year!? I thought I'd try Markovits again after the lacklustre A Weekend in New York but I barely made it past page 10. What a boring voice!

[leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

a review in the guardian billed this as ‘a male counterpart to all fours’, a book i didn’t really like much, so it was up in the air as to whether i’d like this.

the rest of our lives follows tom, a middle aged professor, who, after his wife’s affair, resolves to leave her once their youngest daughter turns eighteen. 12 years later, when that day arrives, tom drops his daughter off at college and then keeps driving, dropping in on various people from his past.

it was a quick read with easy, stream of consciousness writing, but the interesting premise sadly never lives up to its potential and ultimately makes for quite a dull book.

it offers up a lot of themes that could be explored well - ageing, marriage, midlife, identity, empty nest syndrome etc - but it never lets itself dig deep enough and therefore the book doesn’t have much emotional weight. the ending just fizzles out in quite an unsatisfying way, and dare i say the ending was a little corny too.

2.75

[stefania · Rating 1 out of 5]

let me save you all the trouble: boring middle aged man has a boring mid life crisis. the end.

[Aoife Cassidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm definitely showing my age when I say that I'm really enjoying midlife slice of life novels at the moment. This new novel from British-American writer Benjamin Markovits explores empty nest syndrome and a midlife road trip and asks the question - what is left when your kids leave home for college?

Tom is a law professor and father of two, married to Amy. Amy had an affair a decade ago and Tom promised himself that once their youngest child Miriam left for college, he'd leave his wife. That time has arrived and as Tom sets off to settle Miriam into college, he embarks on a road trip, not fully knowing where it is going to take him.

This is one of those books where the characters are sharply drawn and where, though not a huge amount happens, it gets under your skin. Tom isn't always a particularly nice person, nor is his brittle wife, but their redeeming characteristics bubble beneath the surface and we slowly find out what has brought them to this point and where they go from here. Examining midlife, mortality and marriage, The Rest of Our Lives asks the hard questions, to which there are no easy answers.

There's a fair bit of basketball chat in here in case that is off-putting to anyone, don't say you weren't warned! If you enjoy this, I think you'll also enjoy This Is Who We Are Now by James Bailey and Coming Home by Tom Lamont, both of which are refreshing reads that portray masculinity with nuance and empathy. 4/5 stars

Many thanks to Faber Books for the advance copy via @netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Cecilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

El protagonista repasa distintos momentos de su vida, se encuentra con personas de su pasado, intenta retomar antiguos proyectos, permitiéndose quizás esta pausa como un momento de chequeo personal, de entender las decisiones que lo llevaron a su yo del presente, los momentos que lo definen, mientras recibe mensajes de su propio cuerpo, y es que en esta introspección más psicológica ha dejado en segundo plano señales de su salud que se vuelven cada vez más urgentes.

Me pareció muy ágil de leer, fue como subirse al auto con el protagonista y sentarse a escuchar su historia mientras van cambiando los paisajes en el camino. Un roadtrip muy interesante sobre envejecer, sobre las decisiones que vamos tomando, las huellas de la infancia, los amores de la juventud, y las complejidades y desafíos de la adultez.

Actualmente esta novela forma parte de las nominadas a la shortlist para el Booker Prize 2025.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes, a simple ”Meh” sums up everything: the main character’s approach to life, the general plot of the novel, the reader’s meh-ish progress while commuting to work in October (meh!).
If the meta-intention of the novel was to describe how meh life can be, it’s brilliantly delivered.
On a darker note, one could argue that it is awfully depressing to follow a clueless middle-aged man on a mostly boring road trip without any enlightening insights only to leave him at a hospital with a diagnosis that mirrors his psychological profile. The art of facing depressing facts passively.

[Yaprak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hayatımızın Geri Kalanı'na başlarken kesin sevmeyeceğim diyen bir ses vardı içimde. Genelde Booker Ödülleri'ne başlarken hep bu sesle başlıyorum ve genelde de bu kitaplarla anlaşamıyorum. Bu kez de nefret etmedim ama bayılmadım da. Kocaman bir meh kaldı geride.

Anlatıcımız Tom, kızını üniversiteye bırakmak üzere yola çıkıyor. Yol boyunca hayatındaki insanların evlerine uğruyor, orada kalıyor. Kendisini aldatan eşiyle geçmişte yaşadıklarını, iş hayatında yaşadığı sorunları anlatıyor bize. (politik doğrucu tavra bir eleştiri de var kitapta. gereksiz buldum ben o kısmı) Hep yollarda olmayı ve bir kitap yazmayı hayal etmiş. Bu hayali bu kitapla binevi gerçekleşiyor. Yollar, insanlar, geçmiş ve sağlık sorunları...

Kitaba bayılmadım. Üç sayfalık bir öyküyle harikalar yaratan kadın yazarların yanında, 210 sayfa boyunca hayatını anlatan bir erkek karakteri bir erkeğin kaleminden okumak beni okur olarak etkilemedi ne yalan söyleyeyim. Erkek yazarlar keşke kadın meslektaşlarını daha çok okusa ve ilham alsa diye içimden geçirmeden edemedim. Burada özellikle cinsiyet belirtmemin sebebi, kadın yazarların duyguları ve insanın içinde bulunduğu durumları daha iyi bir gözlemle daha iyi aktarabildiklerini düşünmemden kaynaklanıyor. Bu elbette benim kişisel fikrim.

Ödüle değer görülmesini abartı olarak bulduğumu, kendisinden harika bir Çağan Irmak filmi olabileceğini düşündüğümü ekleyerek sonlandırıyorum.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel follows a middle-aged man who, after dropping his daughter off at college, sets off on a random road trip to figure out what comes next in his life. Along the way, he visits friends and family, revisits his college years, and reflects on his wife’s affair years earlier—something he always believed would finally give him the push to leave once his daughter was grown.

This was my first Ben Markovits novel, and I appreciated the sly, understated humor and the way he captures a man in midlife reckoning. Tom is also dealing with an unexplained health issue, with symptoms others notice and comment on, while he insists it’s a mid-life thing, which sounds too familiar of how men often dismiss their health problems. Where the novel lost me was in its focus. The frequent detours into Tom’s past were sometimes confusing, and the sense of place remained vague longer than it should have. His idea of writing a book about pick-up basketball felt more like idle rumination than a meaningful thread. Also, Tom makes some politically provacative remarks that may rub some people the wrong way. Even though I thought the ending was quietly poignant, it didn’t quite make up for how uninspiring Tom was for me.

[Kat · Rating 1 out of 5]

A middle-aged man discovers that his wife has an affair. Although their marriage has been in trouble for quite some time, he decides to do nothing until all his kids leave home for college. Finally, the day came.
This could have been such an emotional, reflective story about broken love, broken hopes, and shattered lives. The empty nest syndrome, combined with betrayal and devastating loneliness, sounds like a perfect recipe for a bestseller. Unfortunately, what we have here is a mess. Thoughts, memories, and countless unimportant dialogues made me lose interest at the beginning of the book. I decided to keep going, hoping that the book would pick up. DNF at 45%.