Booker longlist 2026: Book #9

This will be the last longlist book I review - I ended up not being able to get into The Renovation, so I left it over - and what a way to finish. It's my equal favourite to win now (wish the Booker would give a three-way tie, but while they have done two winners in the past, three might be a bit much to hope for!)

Here's the rolling list. I use a green cross if I attempted the book but didn't finish; red crosses are for ones that I (at this stage) don't intend to attempt. I abandoned All Them Dogs at about 1/3 of the way through and The Renovation at about 1/4 of the way.

✅1. The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis: 8.5/10
✅2. Switzy by Emma Cline: 9.5/10
❌3. Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman
✅4. The End of Everything by M. John Harrison: 5/10
❌5. The Disappearers by Marlon James
✅6. Black Bag by Luke Kennard: 7/10
❎7. The Renovation by Kenan Orhan
✅8. May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry: 8.5/10
✅9. The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley: 6/10
✅10. The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout: 9.5/10
✅11. John of John by Douglas Stuart: 9.25/10
❎12. All Them Dogs by Djamel White
✅13. The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams: 5/10

Switzy by Emma Cline: 9.5/10

This book got to me in a way that few books really can. I finished it just now and literally said "oh wow" aloud to the empty air, and I think it's going to linger in my mind and heart for a long, long time.

The concept of assisted dying is one I fully support intellectually, but I have often wondered if, when push comes to shove, it is something I could actually bring myself to do, and if I did, what thoughts and feelings might occupy my final preparatory days. 

This book really comes to grips with that, and gives a portrait of what it might be like to live inside a brain deteriorating with dementia as you move towards a chosen exit. I have never read anything quite like it in that regard. Cline's stylistic choices to use short, declarative, unadorned sentences throughout most of the book (especially when inside David's thoughts, which is where we mostly are) really helps build this affect, and shows an incredibly skilful and thoughtful touch.

The journey David (the protagonist) takes, both physically and mentally, as he travels to Switzerland to access assisted dying was searingly honest, mesmerising, and not completely dark (although there was darkness in it, as you would expect). 

David isn't the most loveable of characters - honestly, he seems like he would've been a bastard in his heyday - but the unflinching humanity with which Cline invests him is so powerful that it almost doesn't matter. He spends most of the book reckoning with the life he led, mixed seamlessly with coming to terms with its imminent end. His visit to his daughter Rebecca and grandson Rainer, his attempted rapprochement with Tom (a friend of his youth who he terribly wronged), his treatment of his carer, Cody, and most of all, his surging swell of memories / mismemories, emotions and emptiness, is just incredibly written.

Towards the end, Cline does allow herself some more lyrical language, and it lands just perfectly. I'll end with this final passage from the book, and my hearty recommendation that this should shortlist for the Booker and I wouldn't be sad if it won it.

"The tears ran down his face but they weren't from sadness. Here, at the end, there had been no need to strain, after all. It contained its own meaning.

He sent this message out into the vibrating air, a message to join the other messages.

I am holding out my hand."