Author: Julian BarnesModern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945) | Fiction: special features | Coping with old age | Coping with death & bereavementPublished on 22nd January 2026 by Vintage Publishing (Jonathan Cape) in the United Kingdom.Hardback | 176 pages 224mm x 144mm | 284g Departure(s) is a work of fiction – but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.It is the story of a man called Stephen and a woman called Jean, who fall in love when they are young and again when they are old. It is the story of an elderly Jack Russell called Jimmy, enviably oblivious to his own mortality.It is also the story of how the body fails us, whether through age, illness, accident or intent. And it is the story of how experiences fade into anecdotes, and then into memory. Does it matter if what we remember really happened? Or does it just matter that it mattered enough to be remembered?It begins at the end of life – but it doesn’t end there. Ultimately, it’s about the only things that ever really mattered: how we find happiness in this life, and when it is time to say goodbye.'Metafictional, moving, unmistakably Barnes' OBSERVER'There's no one quite like Julian Barnes' GUARDIAN'Everything Julian Barnes writes changes everything' FRANCES WILSON, author of Electric Spark
