"Sara is newly dead, Pauline Boty is long dead, Simon Aguilera's wife is long dead, and Ishmael is improbably very much alive."
I had been counting down to the day when this novel arrived in my letter box and I feel I was sadly mistaken. Certainly a novel about ageing, dying and decay was not really the perfect antidote for yet another birthday. I may have rebelled in spectacular fashion to countermand its influence.
My reading journey was a rocky one, short snippets of misery that seemed somewhat interminable, which is perplexing given the many endings posited within. It felt like being on the phone to my mother when she is telling a never ending tale concerned with people, names and places which are completely unfamiliar to me.
Stylistically it is well fashioned and yet it just didn't gel with me. Old age, I'm not ready for you yet. Perhaps this is something I need to re-read later, much...much...much later.
I'm guessing my mother will like it.
4 out of 5 times getting old is not a happy place to be.
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