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From Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Finkler Question and J, and one of 'our funniest writers alive' (Allison Pearson): a wickedly observed novel of old age and new love. At the age of ninety-something, Beryl Dusinbery is forgetting everything including her own children. She spends her days stitching morbid samplers and tormenting her two long-suffering carers, Nastya and Euphoria, with tangled stories of her husbands and love affairs. Shimi Carmelli can do up his own buttons, walks without the aid of a frame and speaks without spitting. Among the widows of North London, hes whispered about as the last of the eligible bachelors. Unlike Beryl, he forgets nothing especially not the shame of a childhood incident that has hung over him ever since. Theres very little life remaining for either of them, but perhaps just enough to heal some of the hurt inflicted along the way, and find new meaning in whats left. Told with Jacobsons trademark wit and style, Live a Little is equal parts funny, irreverent and tender a novel to make you consider all the paths not taken, and whether you could still change course.
“What they call dementia, she has decided, is nothing but a failure to maintain a comprehensive filing system. And what they call losing your mind is forgetting to use it.”
Live a Little: A Novel | 