Barbara Isn’t Dying

Walter Schmidt has lived his whole life within the narrow, comfortable confines of traditional gender roles: he has made it to retirement without learning how to fry an egg or use a vacuum cleaner. After all, he could always count on his wife, Barbara. But, when one morning she can’t —or won’t! —get up from bed anymore, everything changes.

With biting humour and great warmth, Alina Bronsky writes about how Walter, nearing the end of his life, is suddenly forced to reinvent himself as a caregiver and househusband, and become the caring partner he never was in all his years with Barbara. Little by little, Walter’s rough facade begins to crumble, and with it his old certainties about his life and family.

A bittersweet and hilarious novel about a marriage whose decades-old routine is suddenly upended.

"Darkly funny."—The Times

Walter Schmidt has lived his whole life within the narrow, comfortable confines of traditional gender roles: he has made it to retirement without learning how to fry an egg or use a vacuum cleaner. After all, he could always count on his wife, Barbara. But, when one morning she can’t —or won’t! —get up from bed anymore, everything changes.

With biting humour and great warmth, Alina Bronsky writes about how Walter, nearing the end of his life, is suddenly forced to reinvent himself as a caregiver and househusband, and become the caring partner he never was in all his years with Barbara. Little by little, Walter’s rough facade begins to crumble, and with it his old certainties about his life and family.