When I started this book, I wasn't quite sure what it was I was reading. I'd anticipated a novel but the early pages felt like non-fiction, exploring the science behind memory, research into aging. 

Before too long we're told about Stephen and Jean who were romantically involved as students. The narrator/author has recently met them again and has been involved in the rekindling of their relationship. 

Nothing is clear. Is this a memoir? Are the characters real or imagined? The narrator/author plays with us all the time, raising the questions but not providing the answers. 

He tells us that he's coming to the end of his life and how age, illness or accident may cast the final blow. 

He explores how experiences become anecdotes and then memory. But how can we rely on our recollections as true presentations of events? Does it matter if they are inaccurate? Is the essence of an event what matters?  

Julian Barnes has said this is his last novel.