This new collection of Colum MacCann includes one novella and three short stories. I can't help writing something finishing the first novella with the same title of the book.
It's about the last day of a 82-year-old man, who lives with a housemaid who could barely get her grammar right and insisted in calling him Mr. J.
Mr. J. woke up finding a diaper beneath, which quite annoyed him. It's considered as a humiliation to his elderly life. He couldn't help thinking about his late wife, his daughter who lives far away from him, and his son, Harvard graduate, working in Wall Street, physically close but mentally remote.
Mr. J. has a reservation at his favorite restaurant to have lunch with his son, who seems to be absent-minded during the whole process. He was clung to his phone, solving some "tough problem". Eventually he let his father pay the bill and left early. The old man, who headed home alone after finishing his meal, was killed, with leftover for the housemaid scattered all round.
The language Mr. McCann applies is so seductive that I couldn't wait to turn to the next page. I just followed the flow to find the murder: the man whose daughter was seduced and then dumped and fired by the old man's boy. Ironically, the old gentlemen is the murder's (who is the busboy of the restaurant) favorite customer: a always polite and generous tipper.
This last day pretty much illustrates how older people live: maybe alone with their spouse died; a housemaid who takes care of their daily necessities but can never communicate with them spiritually; one or two successful child/children who don't care, they don't know the housemaid's name (not to mention ask about how she take care of their parent), who is/are busy in his or her own nuclear family and career. The elder people need to wait a long time and even do much preparation for a little time their children bestow them, suffer their indifference, pay their bills and even, pay their sins.
This novella is very thought provoking, how do we treat our parents? And how would we like our old age life be?
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