Should We Stay or Should We Go Lionel Shriver (HarperCollins, £18. When it is not buried by topical jibes about Brexit, that central conceit is dealt with compellingly. The book tackles agency and self-determination in the face of an unfeeling and chaotic universe. You’re as likely to miss something dreadful as something wonderful if it is cut short. Weaving in a host of contemporary issues Brexit, mass migration, the coronavirus Lionel Shriver has pulled off a rollicking page-turner in which we never. The timeliness of its plot – the couple’s D-Day overlapping the early days of the Covid crisis – propels an argument that might otherwise have remained opaquely abstract: the past year has proven that life does not promise more joy than pain. Shriver’s characters are contemplating when and how to die rather than if, and the book has moments of profundity, especially when its characters’ heads and hearts refuse to align. Determined to die with dignity, Kay and her husband Cyril - both healthy and vital medical professionals in their early fifties - make a pact: to commit suicide. Of course, it is no more an option to “stay” in any permanent way for Kay and Cyril than it is for any of us.

Should We Stay or Should We Go is sometimes funny, often diverting, always driving towards an urgent answer to its question. “You’re the one who had to go on that big Trafalgar demonstration against the poll tax – which would have raised money for social care and a great deal else,” says Kay to her husband, somewhat formally. Snippets of dialogue between Kay (who voted Leave in the referendum) and Cyril (an ardent Remainer) seem more for exposition’s sake than reflective of their intimacy. Unsurprisingly for a book that privileges philosophising over narrative drive, Should We Stay or Should We Go features a lot of arguments which, one senses, Shriver herself would like to be having.

Lionel shriver should we stay review