From the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller
The Post-Birthday World comes a searing, ruthlessly honest
new novel about a marriage both stressed and strengthened by
the demands of serious illness. Shep Knacker has long saved
for "The Afterlife": an idyllic retreat to the Third World
where his nest egg can last forever. Traffic jams on the
Brooklyn-Queens Expressway will be replaced with "talking,
thinking, seeing, and being"—and enough sleep. When he sells
his home repair business for a cool million dollars, his
dream finally seems within reach. Yet Glynis, his wife of
twenty-six years, has concocted endless excuses why it's
never the right time to go. Weary of working as a peon for
the jerk who bought his company, Shep announces he's leaving
for a Tanzanian island, with or without her. Just returned
from a doctor's appointment, Glynis has some news of her
own: Shep can't go anywhere because she desperately needs
his health insurance. But their policy only partially covers
the staggering bills for her treatments, and Shep's nest egg
for The Afterlife soon cracks under the strain. Enriched
with three medical subplots that also explore the human
costs of American health care, So Much for That follows the
profound transformation of a marriage, for which grave
illness proves an unexpected opportunity for tenderness,
renewed intimacy, and dry humor. In defiance of her dark
subject matter, Shriver writes a page-turner that presses
the question: How much is one life worth?
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