Departure(s)

A Novel

By: Julian Barnes

Narrated by: Julian Barnes

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.

“A culmination . . . shimmering with [Barnes’s] silky, erudite prose; beneath the suave surface is an earnest investigation into the mysterious ways of the human heart.” —The Atlantic

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 story—or a story within the story—but not just yet.”

Of course, whether Departure(s) is mostly fiction 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.

"Life and memory can be so . . . quixotic, don't you find?" 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 in their behalf add up in the end. Having promised them he'd never write about them, he breaks the promise to fulfill one, amply, to his readers, in this delightful and poignant novelist’s game that only Julian Barnes knows how to play.

Critic reviews

“[Barnes] has not merely blurred the line between fact and fiction; he has expunged it. . . . skillfully weaving in thoughts on love, on aging, on writing fiction, on preparing for death. It’s a virtuoso performance.” —The Washington Post

“Thoughtful and dynamic.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“A culmination . . . shimmering with [Barnes’s] silky, erudite prose; beneath the suave surface is an earnest investigation into the mysterious ways of the human heart.” —The Atlantic

“Proustian in both focus and scope, Barnes’ philosophical flights are . . . reminiscent of W. G. Sebald, but with a warmth, humanity, and humor that are distinctly his own. . . . This is a rewarding and profound exploration of the human condition from a deeply captivating writer.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Barnes explores memory, identity, and aging in this elegiacal and witty metafictional novella. . . . [and] remains in top form. Readers with a penchant for the precise prose of Ian McEwan or the collage metafiction of Sigrid Nunez will love his latest.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“A revelatory meditation on love, death, and memory. . . . Barnes dives headlong into the slippery nature of memory and what one forgets through time or necessity. It’s an understated but graceful valediction by a writer whose work won’t soon be forgotten.” —Publishers Weekly

“An autofictional remembrance. . . . Questioning the merits of novel-writing as an endeavor, the way it prompts the writer to exaggerate and betray. . . . It’s clear that Barnes is writing with a certain urgency.” —Kirkus Reviews

A Bittersweet Gem

Julian Barnes delivers another winner....I was sad to read it will be his last novel. I enjoyed his honesty and will miss his work.

Julian Barnes's final novel

Author Barnes is always engaging, entertaining, witty and in many ways inscrutable. I thoroughly enjoyed this work, though never sure where it would lead. I never found that out for certain so will listen again soon. Very highly recommended.

This was great

Of course I have heard of JB before now but until I read the review of this book in the WSJ I had not read any of this books. So odd to start with his last but I did. He is a wonderful writer and everyone knows that so I won't go on here except to say that after I finish this review I will go download more. Anyway, an hour before the end I realized I had not been giving this book my full attention and I went right back to the beginning to start again. I think about dying every day, I always have and JB and I believe the same things about the inevitable, but to hear someone else say your own hopeless thoughts is mildly depressing in that listening to books is an escape for me - so this was not an escape and though it was a great story within a few stories it left me wanting more of his writing, and feeling a bit sad about the universe in general, and that this is his last book. I talked about to my 89 year old mom and learned that she never thinks about dying, not at all, ever. So I do very much recommend the book but perhaps best for a book group so you have people to talk with afterwards.

I shall not stop looking

Indeed I have also enjoyed our relationship over the years. Thank you Julian Barnes. I shall not stop looking,

A perfect good bye

The authenticity, the candor, the intertwined stories and observations. So sad to know there will be no more of his writing to read.