Live a Little

A wickedly observed novel about falling in love at the end of your life, by the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Finkler Question.*SHORTLISTED FOR THE WINGATE LITERARY PRIZE 2020*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, he s 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 like an oppressive cloud ever since.There s 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 what s left. Told with Jacobson s trademark wit and style, Live a Little is in equal parts funny, irreverent and tender a novel to make you consider all the paths not taken, and whether you could still change course.