“A stunning tale." —Booklist, STARRED review for How to Be Remembered
For readers of Rebecca Serle's In Five Years and Nikki Erlick's The Measure, Michael Thompson's romantic magical realism will have you smiling, laughing, crying, and questioning: If you knew when someone was going to die...would you tell them?
Family doctor Charlie Knight is in his late thirties, still playing tennis against the same people every Friday night. Still jogging the same streets every morning. Still treating the same patients every day—fixing the high blood pressure and arthritic knees of folks who’ve known him since he was a kid. But Charlie has a secret plan to escape. A plan to live the life he wants, even if the woman he was meant to do it with has left him behind.
But then Genevieve Longstaff comes back to their hometown, just as something extraordinary happens. Charlie begins to have a vision of the exact number of days a person has left until they die.
Charlie believes it’s a gift. It certainly seems like one—after all, he’s using it to help his patients, family and friends make the most of their lives: to mend relationships, to travel, to retire. But this gift comes with awful consequences, and soon Charlie realizes there are things he doesn’t want to know—especially about the woman he still loves.