Description

Love can change your life. Can it survive marriage and middle age?

‘A rare gift and one to be treasured’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘A profound and vital book’ WILLIAM BOYD

‘Equal parts funny and challenging’ DAILY TELEGRAPH

Lily falls in love with Sam the minute she sets eyes on him. It takes Sam a day or two longer. Curious, because Lily – independent, headstrong, rational – has never quite believed in love; while Sam – confident, passionate, romantic – thought he understood it inside out.

Lily is an award-winning television documentary maker. Sam is an award-winning playwright. Both are in relationships that have quietly expired, but their encounter makes Lily and Sam come alive again. As they begin to work together on the page and on screen, an affair takes hold that they are powerless to resist.

Arriving in mid-life, their relationship opens unexpected new worlds and, for Lily, offers her a surprising form of liberation. But what will happen to them when familiarity, illness and age begin to take their toll? What will survive? Taking us to the edge of desire, love and betrayal across a lifetime, What Will Survive of Us reveals what is left of us when we strip away every layer.

Publisher Review

A wonderfully wise, moving and heartfelt novel. A profound and vital book -- William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart How is it possible to read Howard Jacobson and not lose oneself in admiration for the music of his language, the power of his characterisation and the penetration of his insight? * The Times * Howard Jacobson at his finest. An intense expression of romantic love and sexual desire -- Linda Grant, author of The Story of the Forest One of the funniest writers alive * Daily Telegraph * Howard Jacobson is rightly regarded as one of Britain's very greatest writers -- Jonathan Freedland, author of The Escape Artist