At the start of The Rest of Our Lives, we learn that Tom, a 55-year-old law professor from New York, plans to leave his wife just as soon as he has dropped their youngest child off at college. Tom and Amy have been together for 30 years. He believes theirs to be a “C-minus marriage” which was irreparably ruptured when Amy had an affair 12 years previously. And so, after leaving their daughter Miriam at college in Pittsburgh, he keeps on driving, revisiting old friends and places in search of his departed youth.

Benjamin Markovits’s 12th novel – which has been shortlisted for this year’s Booker prize – could be seen as a companion piece to Miranda July’s celebrated All Fours in its exploration of the dissatisfaction of middle age. Tom is not a reliable narrator of his life, though he is nonetheless a compelling protagonist even in his flagrant moments of self-deception.

The voice actor Eric Meyers is the narrator who expertly conveys Tom’s bubbling discontent, even if there’s a slight panto quality to his voicing of female characters. We gradually gather there are wider issues fomenting Tom’s unhappiness, from a simmering illness that he imagines is long Covid, and about which he has so far declined to see a doctor, to the forced sabbatical from his job following complaints from his students. Tom, who hasn’t told his wife about his work difficulties, clearly believes he is more sinned against than sinning. But much like July’s nameless heroine in All Fours, he finds freedom and fresh perspective on the open road.

Available via Faber, 6hr 56min.

Further listening

Don’t Make Me Laugh
Julia Raeside, Bedford Square & WF Howes, 11hr 13min
Elizabeth Bower reads this smart, insightful debut set in the world of comedy in which female producer with self-esteem issues befriends a male performer whose attentiveness masks a dark and predatory agenda.

All the Way to the River
Elizabeth Gilbert, Bloomsbury, 10hr 10min
The mega-selling Eat, Pray, Love author chronicles the heady ups and desperate downs of her relationship with her drug-addicted friend turned partner Rayya. When Rayya is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Gilbert dedicates herself to looking after her.