Our book group choice for October 2026 is The Rest of Our Lives by Benjamin Markovits. Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, the book offers a wry, observant subversion of the great American road novel.
The story follows Tom Layward, a fifty-five-year-old law professor from New York who drops his youngest daughter, Miriam, off at university in Pittsburgh. Facing an empty nest, he makes a split-second decision: instead of heading home to his wife, Amy, he keeps driving west.
Tom’s detour is fuelled by a long-delayed reckoning. Twelve years earlier, after Amy had a brief affair, he made a private pact to leave once their children were grown. Resigned to what he calculates as a ‘C-minus marriage’ that inevitably caps the rest of his existence at a ‘B’, he sets off across the continent in a haze of professional and physical vulnerability. Unbeknownst to Amy, he has been suspended from his faculty post following clashes over campus politics, all while struggling with undiagnosed, worsening physical ailments including palpitations and exhaustion.
As Tom meanders toward California—visiting an old flame, his divorced brother, casual pickup basketball games, and eventually his graduate-student son, Michael—his journey is far more introspective than escapist. Driving alone, he conducts an ongoing, tender dialogue in his head with the wife he is ostensibly fleeing. When his physical symptoms culminate in a medical crisis, the road trip halts, forcing a raw, unsentimental encounter with his family.
Markovits crafts an understated, deeply human portrait of middle-age inertia, marriage, and the calcification of old grievances. Rather than delivering a melodramatic rupture, the novel explores whether a long partnership can be renegotiated when the foundational illusions of youth, certainty, and autonomy finally fall away.
Discussion Questions
- What was your overall impression of the novel? Was it what you were expecting?
- How did you feel about Tom Layward as a narrator?
- Do you think Tom and Amy loved each other?
- What role does the road trip play in the story? Is Tom running away from his problems or trying to understand them?
- How did Miriam leaving change the family dynamic?
- The novel touches on changing social attitudes and workplace expectations. How was this handled in the book, and did it fit with the other narratives?
- As Tom revisits past relationships and decisions what do we learn about his character and his midlife reflections/choices?
- What do you think the title, means and how did you interpret the ending? Will anything change/ will Tom be able to be more emotionally open with those closest to him?
- Why do you think this was on the Booker list?
- To whom would you recommend this? Why?
Individual Ratings.
EmmaT's Rating 
Sue's Rating
Anthony's Rating
Baljit's Rating
Willow's Rating
Hayley's Rating
DKB's Rating
Jo's Rating