Author: Julian Barnes

United Kingdom, Great Britain

Published on 22 January 2025 by Jonathan Cape (Vintage Publishing) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 176 pages

Departure(s) is a work of fiction – but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

This is the story of a man called Stephen and a woman called Jean, who fall in love when they are young and again when they are old. It is the story of an elderly Jack Russell called Jimmy, enviably oblivious to his own mortality.

It is also the story of how the body fails us, whether through age, illness, accident or intent. And it is the story of how experiences fade into anecdotes, and then into memory. Does it matter if what we remember really happened? Or does it just matter that it mattered enough to be remembered? It begins at the end of life – but it doesn’t end there.

Ultimately, it’s about the only things that ever really mattered: how we find happiness in this life, and when it is time to say goodbye.