Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN
  1. Books
  2. Fiction
  3. Contemporary fiction

Read and listen for free for 14 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
4.0(2)

Should We Stay or Should We Go : A Novel

When her father dies, Kay Wilkinson can’t cry. Over ten years, Alzheimer’s had steadily eroded this erudite man into a paranoid lunatic. Surely one’s own father passing should never come as such a relief.

Both medical professionals, Kay and her husband Cyril have seen too many elderly patients in similar states of decay. Although healthy and vital in their early fifties, the couple fears what may lie ahead. Determined to die with dignity, Cyril makes a modest proposal. To spare themselves and their loved ones such a humiliating and protracted decline, they should agree to commit suicide together once they’ve both turned eighty. When their deal is sealed, the spouses are blithely looking forward to another three decades together.

But then they turn eighty.

By turns hilarious and touching, playful and grave, Should We Stay or Should We Go portrays twelve parallel universes, each exploring a possible future for Kay and Cyril. Were they to cut life artificially short, what would they miss out on? Something terrific? Or something terrible? Might they end up in a home? A fabulous luxury retirement village, or a Cuckoo’s Nest sort of home? Might being demented end up being rather fun? What future for humanity awaits—the end of civilization, or a Valhalla of peace and prosperity? What if cryogenics were really to work? What if scientists finally cure aging?

Both timely and timeless, Lionel Shriver addresses serious themes—the compromises of longevity, the challenge of living a long life and still going out in style—with an uncannily light touch. Weaving in a host of contemporary issues, from Brexit and mass migration to the coronavirus, Shriver has pulled off a rollicking page-turner in which we never have to mourn perished characters, because they’ll be alive and kicking in the very next chapter.


Author:

  • Lionel Shriver

Narrator:

  • Hannah Curtis

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 10 h 13 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • Fiction
  • Contemporary fiction
  • Fiction
  • Comedic fiction
  • Comics and humor
  • Satire and parody

4.0

2 ratings

Kjartan

1/22/2025

Litt tung i starten og litt vanskelig å følge til tider, men så kommer den seg etter hvert.

To write a review you need to download the app


More by Lionel Shriver

Skip the list
  1. We Need to Talk About Kevin movie tie-in : A Novel

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobook
  2. Mania

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobook
  3. Mania : A Novel

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobook
  4. Hvad med Kevin?

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobookbook
  5. Abominations : Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobook
  6. Should We Stay or Should We Go

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobook
  7. The Motion of the Body Through Space : A Novel

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobook
  8. The Motion of the Body Through Space

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobook
  9. The Post-Birthday World

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobook
  10. Game Control

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobook
  11. Double Fault

    Lionel Shriver

    audiobook

Others have also read

Skip the list
  1. Der vi engang gikk

    Kjell Westö

    audiobook
  2. Anna Karenina

    Leo Tolstoy

    audiobookbook
  3. Not In A Billion Years - A BRAND NEW hilarious, enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy from Camilla Isley for 2023 (Unabridged)

    Camilla Isley

    audiobook
  4. Mørke dager

    Belinda Bauer

    audiobook
  5. Den senile landmåleren

    Arto Paasilinna

    audiobookbook
  6. Fri vilje

    Helga Hjorth

    audiobook
  7. Flammer og regn : en roman om Martin Linge

    Øystein Wiik

    audiobook
  8. Familien Helgevold fra Storhaug: novelle

    Tore Renberg

    audiobook
  9. Ingemar Modigs oppvåkning

    Mikael Bergstrand

    audiobookbook
  10. Pan

    Knut Hamsun

    audiobook
  11. Ingenstedsøya

    Therese Aasvik

    audiobookbook
  12. Ett skritt om gangen

    Katherine Center

    audiobookbook

  • 21 books

    Lionel Shriver

    LIONEL SHRIVER’S novels include 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. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian and the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and many other publications. She lives in London and Brooklyn, New York.

    Read more

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5