The Rest Of Our Lives by Ben Markovits

This book is longlisted for the 2025 booker Prize, which is the one longlist that I work to read in its entirety--that goal is occasionally hard to accomplish because some of the books are not available in the US (this has improved some since the possible nominees now include all works of fiction published in English rather than limited to author's from countries that were part of the British colonial empire). It is worth finding them all because pretty routinely there are books on the longlist that don't make it to the short list that I like better than some of those that move on. The story here is narrated by 55-year-old law professor Tom Layward, who is taking his youngest child to university. It’s a moment of change and re-evaluation for any couple. But within Tom and Amy’s marriage an unexploded bomb is ticking. Tom tells us that, 12 years earlier, Amy had an affair. He managed his heartbreak by making a deal with himself that he would leave when his youngest went to college. After dropping his daughter Miri in Pittsburgh, Tom doesn’t head back to New York and he doesn't quite know why. He cannot decide what it is that he wants to do. He drives west, stopping to see old friends and family members, weighing his next move and reflecting on his past. He tells us about his background and upbringing, his marriage and career, and he comes gradually into focus: an intriguing blend of frankness and reserve, bemusement, disappointment, fatherliness and compassion. He has loss in his past, and he is not what you would call a great communicator. We all see a way forward before he does, and like any good therapist, we have to wait until he sees it too.