What We Are Reading Today: ‘Departure(s)’

Author: Julian Barnes Julian Barnes’s 2026 novel, “Departure(s),” is a short book that manages a difficult task: It looks directly at mortality without flattening into gloom. Part memoir, part fiction, it moves between Barnes’s own reflections and the story of Stephen and Jean, whose late-life reunion makes time feel newly real. The premise can sound distant on paper — old age, illness, the disappearance of friends. In practice, it lands closer than you expect. Barnes writes about time the way it really behaves — quietly, and then all at once.

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