THE END OF THE ALPHABET

This slim debut novel distills the essence of life and love, once a British husband and wife learn that he has a month or less to live.

Imagine Erich Segal’s Love Story rewritten by Nicholson Baker and transplanted to England. The protagonists are sort of an Everycouple, with nothing very exceptional about themselves, their lives or their fate. An advertising man who is creative but not deeply reflective, Ambrose Zephyr learns as he approaches 50 that he has a fatal, incurable and unnamed disease. His wife, Zappora “Zipper” Ashkenazi, who writes about books for a semi-popular fashion magazine, complements him emotionally as well as alphabetically. The two have no children and apparently need nothing beyond each other and their routines to make their lives full. Ambrose’s diagnosis seems to hit Zipper harder than it does him. He knows that he must readjust, to deal with “days that until moments before had been assumed would stretch to years. With luck, to decades. Not shrink to weeks.” He immediately devises a plan for those dwindling days. Obsessed with the alphabet since childhood, he will use it to plan an itinerary, a letter per day: Amsterdam, Berlin, Chartres. Zipper agrees, anticipating Paris and Venice, yet driven to distraction or denial by her husband’s impending death. After the scene-setting, the novel threatens to become a little too rote, a little too alphabetically cute. Yet Richardson’s prose is precise and often poetic, devoid of sentimental treacle, and the narrative deepens thematically as the couple discovers that it is as hard to plan neatly for death as it is for life. A climactic twist casts new light on the preceding narrative, and some might be tempted to start the novel all over again upon finishing.

A novel that can be read in a single sitting of less than two hours might continue to resonate with readers for weeks, months, even years.