2025 Booker Longlist: The Rest of our Lives by Ben Markovits

Book 11 is The Rest of our Lives by Ben Markovits. Here are our reviews…

Ben Markovits is the author of several acclaimed novels, including You Don’t Have to Live Like This, which won the James Tait Black Prize, and Either Side of Winter. Born in California and raised in Texas, he later played professional basketball in Europe before settling in London, where he now lives and writes. The Rest of our Lives is his 12th novel.

Book Synopsis from Booker website: What’s left when your kids grow up and leave home?  
   
When Tom Layward’s wife had an affair, he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest daughter turned 18. Twelve years later, while driving her to Pittsburgh to start university, he remembers his pact.  
   
He is also on the run from his own health issues, and the fact that he’s been put on leave at work after students complained about the politics of his law class – something he hasn’t yet told his wife.  
   
So, after dropping Miriam off, he keeps driving, with the vague plan of visiting various people from his past – an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son – on route, maybe, to his father’s grave in California.  
   
Pitch perfect, quietly exhilarating and moving, The Rest of Our Lives is a novel about family, marriage and those moments which may come to define us.

Lisa’s Thoughts: I don’t know what the judges saw in this book. It starts with the narrator dropping his second child off at college, and then he just keeps driving, away from home, visiting family members and people from his past. He’s aimless and self-centered. His story is not very interesting. He doesn’t learn anything. Some of the other long-list books I read really made me think; this one did not.

Writing quality: 3/5
Originality: 3/5
Character development: 1/4
Plot development: 1/4
Overall enjoyment: 0/2
Total: 8/20

Jen’s Thoughts: This is a book about ordinary people with ordinary lives and unfortunately I’m just not that interested in reading about upper-middle class white individuals, whose primary struggles are how to cope with their own feelings after their partner has an affair (to leave or not to leave). I do think the book captured a certain demographic very well and I times I felt like I was reading about people from my own social circles. I think there is value to this book and some readers will appreciate the slow-paced, self-reflective nature of Tom, the main character. I think for me, I just wasn’t that interested in Tom’s internal struggles, regret, and passivity. There is most certainly a pattern in book selections this year. This is yet another quiet and restrained book that captures daily life and the weight of ordinary decisions.

Writing quality: 3/5
Originality: 2/5
Character development: 3/4
Plot development: 2/4
Overall enjoyment: 1/2
Total: 11/20

Tracy’s Thoughts: Yet another self-absorbed, shoe-gazing middle-aged white guy who got caught up in a scandal of some kind, unhappy in his marriage, hits the road to find himself. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be serious or satirical, even with an ending hinting at serious. There was some good writing here. Nothing groundbreaking, no redeeming characters, a typical plot. The biggest bright spot for me is that he stopped for Casey’s pizza (an Iowa rite of passage).

Writing quality:4/5
Originality:2/5
Character development: 1/4
Plot development: 2/4
Overall enjoyment: 1/2
Total: 10/20

Anita’s Thoughts: Well, this didn’t feel very Booker-ish (despite being long listed), but unlike the rest of the panel, I liked this very realistic story of a marriage on the rocks. It’s very very “of the moment” in the sense that so many of the telling details grounds the story firmly 2020’s. Something about the interactions and reactions between the four family members seemed so believable to me (and let’s just say I am of their milieu so in a position to know). My one quibble is there’s a number of ancillary characters whose purpose seems only to reflect the protagonist for the readers to see. This is the story of one man and one man only; a deep character dive. Reminded me a lot of Tom Wolfe’s work.

Writing quality: 3/5
Originality: 2/5
Character development: 4/4
Plot development: 3/4
Overall enjoyment: 2/2
Total: 14/20

Rankings
1. Endling: 18.8
2. Seascraper: 18.25
3. Audition: 17.88
4. Universality: 14.5
5. Flesh: 14.4
6. The South: 14.25
7. Flashlight: 14.2
8. One Boat: 13
9. Misinterpretation: 11.75
10. The Rest of Our Lives: 10.75
10. Love forms: 10.5

Have you read it?  What do you think? Want to try it for yourself? You can purchase your copy here: The Rest of our Lives