Yet most people who ask to die, Engelhart reports, are “not in terrible pain, or even afraid of future pain”. But that Lionel Shriver is one more thing I’ve learned to forego. I fancy Katie Engelhart’s characterisation of a chosen death as “an authorial act”, and I’ve never cared for stories that end on ellipses. Thus I desperately don’t want to end up like my mother, who on my brother’s latest visit no longer recognised him. Should We Stay Or Should We Go by Lionel Shriver is published on 10 June by the Borough Press (£18.99).

Source: The Guardian May 30, 2021 06:00 UTC