SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD WE GO

A married couple decides they will take control of their final years by exiting the world together at the age of 80 - with unexpected consequences and possibilities in New York Times bestselling author Lionel Shriver's brilliantly conceived parallel-universe novel of sickness, marriage, old age, and mortality reminiscent of The Post-Birthday World.

As a nurse and general practitioner for Britain's National Health Service, Kay and Cyril Wilkinson know first hand how grievously the "old-old" suffer, and how much the ailments of aging cost both families and the NHS. Closer to home, years of debilitating dementia have turned Kay's father, once a sophisticated, erudite solicitor, into a shadow of himself. His care has exhausted his family and depleted the love they once felt for him. Although Kay and Cyril are still in their early fifties, could a similar fate await them both? For so many of their patients, it's been all downhill beyond about the age of eighty. Thus the night after his father-in-law's funeral, Cyril makes his modest proposal: they should both commit to killing themselves once they turn eighty. But then they turn eighty... Despite the morbid premise, Should We Stay or Should We Go is a playful, hilarious parallel universe novel, which explores every possible future for Kay and Cyril, should one or both fail to follow through on their vow. Weaving in a host of contemporary issues, from Brexit to the coronavirus pandemic, Shriver explores serious themes - mortality, the trade-offs of longevity - with the lightest of light touches. Should We Stay is a rollicking page-turner in which you never have to mourn the passing of characters, because you can be sure they'll be alive and kicking in the very next chapter. Lionel Shriver's fiction includes The Motion of the Body Through Space, The Mandibles, Property, the National Book Award Finalist So Much for That, the New York Times bestseller The Post- Birthday World, and the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, adapted for a 2010 film starring Tilda Swinton. Her journalism has appeared in The Guardian, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. She's a regular columnist for The Spectator in Britain and Harper's Magazine in the US. She lives in London and Brooklyn.