Departure(s)

In this revelatory meditation on love, death, and memory from Booker Prize winner Barnes (The Sense of an Ending), the narrator, a writer named Julian Barnes, claims this is his “last book.” The novel is, in large part, concerned with how a writer treats people and the relationship between literature and life—Barnes reveals how he once manipulated a pair of college friends into rekindling their romance four decades later. When they announced their wedding, he was happy that his “investing” in them yielded a “satisfying conclusion to a story in a way that life rarely does.” Elsewhere, the narrator touches on the indignities of chronic illness and aging and reflects on losing one’s closest friends (Barnes writes with fondness of his late companions Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis). as In its closing pages, the slender and introspective novel explores the peculiar relationship between reader and writer: “Side by side, we look out at the many and varied expressions of life that pass in front of us.” There’s not much plot, but it’s also not much missed—instead, Barnes dives headlong into the slippery nature of memory and what one forgets through time or necessity. It’s an understated but graceful valediction by a writer whose work won’t soon be forgotten. (Jan.)