Book
Departure(s) : A Novel.
On the occasion of his 80th birthday, one of our great novelists delivers a playful and profound work about memory, love, and the writer's endgame. Of course, whether 'Departure(s)' is mostly a fictional story or not, there is a lot of its author in it, including how Julian played matchmaker to Stephen and Jean. As the third wheel, he was deeply invested in the success of their love and insulted when they broke up. Time is swift, and 40 years later, he tries again, watching as their rekindled affair produces joys, betrayals and disappointments of a different order.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781039014749
- Physical Description: 176 pages ; 20 cm
- Publisher: Canada : Random House of Canada, 2026.
Content descriptions
| Immediate Source of Acquisition Note: | Library Bound Incorporated |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | FICTION / Biographical FICTION / Family Life / General FICTION / Literary |
| Genre: | Historical fiction. |
Available copies
- 0 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
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| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lakeshore Branch | ON ORDER | pr08221415 | FICTION | On order | - |
- Random House, Inc.
On the occasion of his eightieth birthday, one of our great novelists delivers a playful and profound work about memory, love and the writer's endgame.
Shortly after our narrator, a writer named Julian, begins this compact book by discussing the workings of involuntary memory, he interrupts himself with a bulletin to the reader: "There will be a storyâor a story within the storyâbut not just yet.â
Of course, whether Departure(s) is mostly a fictional story or not, there is a lot of its author in it, including Barnes's reckoning with the blood disorder he has been living with since he was diagnosed in 2020, his long preoccupation with dying and grief and his mordant sense of the indignities and lost opportunities we're prey to in love. The story he promises to deliver is a love story, that of two friends he met at university in the 1960s, that time of touted but rarely experienced sexual freedom. Julian played matchmaker to Stephen (tall, gangling, uncertain) and Jean (tart and attractive); as the third wheel, he was deeply invested in the success of their love and insulted when they broke up. Time is swift, and forty years later, he tries again, watching as their rekindled affair produces joys, betrayals and disappointments of a different order.
Barnes uses both his novelistic memory and his (real?) personal diary entries to examine not just the quixotic relationship of Jean and Stephen but his writer's eye upon it, and how his efforts on their behalf add up in the end. Despite promising them he'd never write about them, he breaks that promise to fulfill another one, amply, to his readers, in this delightful and poignant novelistâs game that only Julian Barnes knows how to play.
