First published 2015
Charlie Fairburn reaches his sixtieth birthday and decides this will be his last day alive. He has prepared everything methodically. The pills wait in his study. His affairs are in order. Yet as the hours pass, Charlie finds himself drawn into unexpected encounters and conversations that pull him away from his plan. His housekeeper arrives with her own troubles. Old friends call with their crises. Memory intrudes with scenes from his privileged but hollow life. Each interruption forces Charlie to examine what brought him to this moment and whether the exit he has chosen is truly what he wants. The day becomes a reckoning with decades of emotional numbness, failed relationships, and the particular emptiness that comes with having everything and feeling nothing. As evening approaches, Charlie must choose between the certainty of his planned ending and the messy uncertainty of continuing to live.
Genres: drama, literary-fiction, contemporary, psychological-thriller
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: midlife-crisis, unreliable-narrator
176 pages · Paperback · Picador
Content warnings: depression, suicide