We should really keep the means to a quick exit at the ready on principle. Now that her father is dead, Kay says she feels “ absolutely nothing” as he’s spent years “ dying by degrees.” Kay’s mother, 18 years her husband’s junior is now 76 years old “having squandered a decade and a half on toilet duty, cursed and vilified for her efforts.” The long illness of Kay’s father brings the subject of Cyril’s parents to the fore, and then the post funeral discussion segues to Kay and Cyril making a decision: Kay, an NHS nurse, is 51 when her 94-year-old father, who had dementia, finally dies. The title of Lionel Shriver’s novel, Should We Stay or Should We Go? could refer to suicide or Brexit: both are issues in the novel through the main characters, Kay and Cyril Wilkinson. “With all those numbers on the news every night, who’s going to notice if two more elderly Britons snuff it?”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |