First published 2017
A retired mathematics professor calculates the precise probability of his own death with clinical precision. As he tracks actuarial tables, medical histories, and genetic markers, his obsessive research transforms from academic exercise into personal reckoning. Each statistical model becomes a mirror reflecting mortality's inexorable approach. While his wife watches with increasing concern, he builds increasingly complex algorithms to predict the moment of his own extinction—pushing rational analysis to its psychological breaking point. Barnes explores how intellectual rigor confronts the fundamental irrationality of human existence.
Genres: fiction, death, literary-fiction, academic
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: intellectual-protagonist, unreliable-narrator
128 pages · Paperback · Random House Uk
Content warnings: death