The Rest of Our Lives is family story, a road trip novel, and an illness memoir that Ben Markovits pulls together surprisingly well. When Tom takes his daughter Miri to college he veers from his everyday life. One moment he plans on returning home, but then he keeps driving. He has been contemplating leaving his wife, and his job is on pause, so the open road beckons. Heading from Pittsburg to his son's home in Los Angeles, old friends, pickup basketball games and illness find a place on his journey. Markovits has explained how his own experience with cancer shaped this story (see NY Times story https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/books/review/ben-markovits-illness-fiction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PlA.X7vg.oEZ5z7seTOdJ&smid=url-share), which gives his book an interesting perspective of fiction as memoir. Tom is kind of a nerd, which made this novel surprisingly moving. It's a pretty brief tale with a lot of heart.
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