The Rest of Our Lives book review

Kyla Denanyoh

Sep 24

4 min read

If your spouse cheats on you and you’re devastated, I don’t think you need to wait twelve years to leave. If cheating’s a deal breaker, it’s a deal breaker.

The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits is a fiction book about infidelity in marriage, the complications of marriage, and how stress can impact you. The theme is contemporary literature.

Listen. You’re reading the book and you’re thinking, “Okay. He’s having a midlife crisis.”

We’re following Tom. The book starts with him talking about how his wife had an affair, and he decided he’s not going to leave until his youngest goes to college. But it’s so much more than that because you’re reading it and you’re just like, so is it a deal breaker or not? Or is it a quasi deal breaker because you decided to wait twelve years?

She told him about the affair. She told him what was going on with it, and he decided he was going to stick around. It was really important to him and his family that he kept the unit together, so he gave himself a deadline.

I think that is so transactional, but I also think it’s really cool because that’s very much something that a lawyer would do.

The kids will always be hurt if you leave when they’re 11 or if you leave when they’re 18. They grew up with what they thought was a solid unit, and you have separated it.

Tom decides that he’s going to stay.

When his daughter gets into college, he travels to take her to school, and then he decides not to go home.

Tom keeps driving.

He drives across America, and he goes to see old friends from college. He goes to see one of his first loves. He goes to see his brother. You get to see how Tom’s relationship with all these different people has changed. Some of the relationships have become estranged because you literally only get to see them on social media or have a few phone calls every month.

But the theme and the thread through the entire book is basketball.

Tom wanted to be a writer. Instead of writing a book, he decided to go to law school because he thought that would be the grown-up thing to do. Now, he’s a lawyer and working as a professor.

As he’s traveling around the country, he’s discussing pickup basketball. He is interviewing people about pickup basketball, but it’s not an interview with intention. That’s his excuse for why he’s not going back home to his wife who cheated on him.

But it’s like an act of compassion in the weirdest way ever.

Yes, he wanted to keep his family as one unit and keep them together, but I believe Tom always had to have his heart a little bit reserved. We don’t delve into that as much because Tom is absolutely in love with Amy. He loves their family. He’s not as close to his son as he would like, but that’s okay because he has Mary there.

This book is really kind of like an empty nester story, but in the most urgent way possible.

Now, the one thing I have not mentioned, and this is a spoiler.

Tom has this really weird condition where his face swells up.

As I’m reading the book, I’m thinking he is a lawyer and a professor who is extremely stressed out, and this is how burnout is being expressed in his body.

That actually turns out not to be true. But also, it’s a little bit true because his body is telling him that stuff is going on, you are not happy, and you are not dealing with it.

And it’s really very, very interesting.

The book was phenomenal. I would read this book again when my daughter is in high school.

I have a six-year-old. So there was a lot of stuff I’m reading about in the book and thinking, “How would I feel when that’s happening? How would I feel when I’m about to be an empty nester? Is it really that big of a deal to now know, wow, it’s going to be you and your spouse? That’s it?”

But there’s also this idea of being an advocate but not advocating for yourself.

Tom went to the doctor, and the doctor told him it was fine. But it’s clearly not fine.

Your entire face is swollen and puffy every morning when you wake up, and you literally wait for it to drain. Even as I’m saying that now, I realize how indicative that is of his entire life.

“Tom will address things just enough.”

Oh, you cheated on me, you hurt my feelings, I’m leaving in twelve years.

Oh, my face gets really puffy every morning, I’m not dealing with this. See, I called the doctor.

He’ll push it just enough. He never goes too far to actually advocate and get a solution or resolution, and that is the underlying theme of the entire book.

When you read this book, you’re going to recognize people that you know. Because I’m reading it, and I’m just like, “Tom.”

But the truth is, you can’t make people do stuff if they don’t want to.

And so he had to contemplate what he was going to do with the rest of our lives, meaning him and his family, because it turns out the condition that he has is going to impact everyone.

It’s a very, very great book to read.

I am not an East Coast white guy, and that’s what this book is about. But I was able to enjoy it, and I was able to imagine people that I know. I could imagine how I would feel if someone wasn’t heeding your guidance or your urging.

I could even imagine how I would feel if someone told me their spouse cheated and they were going to deal with it in their own way, and you had to say, “It’s your life. However you plan to live the rest of your life is up to you.”

It was very, very good.

It makes you think about a lot of things.

I’ll definitely reread it as my life progresses and I go through different stages to see how I would feel. I can imagine I would be judging Tom a lot less than I was reading it the first time.