With her husband descending into the advanced stages of dementia, Vivian discovers that reading from his favourite cookery books can help.
With her husband descending into the advanced stages of dementia, Vivian discovers that reading from his favourite cookery books can call forth a temporary alleviation and a flash of happiness. But her husband's fading memory compromises her own recollections and brings about disappointments, in both the connections she wants to believe and those she'd rather ignore.
Part of the Storycuts series, this story was previously published in the collection The Lemon Table.
Julian Barnes is the author of thirteen novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and Sunday Times bestsellers The Noise of Time and The Only Story. He has also written three books of short stories, four collections of essays and three books of non-fiction, including the Sunday Times number one bestseller Levels of Life and The Man in the Red Coat, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Duff Cooper Prize. In 2017 he was awarded the Légion d'honneur.
