Lifestyle
‘The Rest of Our Lives’ takes readers on a midlife crisis road trip
The midlife crisis remains a rich vein for novelists, even as its sufferers skew ever older.
In Ben Markovits’ 12th novel,The Rest of Our Lives — which was a finalist for this year’s Booker Prize — the narrator, 55-year-old Tom Layward, is trying to figure out what to do with his remaining time on this mortal coil. With his youngest child headed off to college, his health faltering, and both his marriage and law school teaching position on the rocks, he feels blocked by “undigested emotional material.”
So, what does he do? In the great American tradition, Markovits’ wayward Layward hits the road. After dropping off his daughter at college, he heads west into his past and what may be his sunset.
America’s literary highways are not quite bumper-to-bumper, but they are plenty crowded with middle-aged runaways fleeing lives that increasingly feel like a bad fit. Many are women, including the heroines of Anne Tyler’s Ladder of Years and Miranda July’s All Fours. But there are men, too, like the hero of John Updike’s Rabbit, Run — the granddaddy of midlife crisis novels — which serves as a sort of template for Markovits’ novel (and, tellingly, is the subject of his narrator’s abandoned doctoral dissertation, which he tossed aside for the more dependable employment prospects of a law degree after meeting his “unusually beautiful” future wife, Amy.)
We meet Tom and Amy on the cusp of empty nesting. This is not a happy prospect. Tom has been biding his time for the last dozen years, since he learned of Amy’s affair with a guy she knew from synagogue. This happened back when their daughter, Miriam, was six, and her older brother, Michael, was 12.
Their marriage has not improved in the intervening years. The early pages of this novel, a countdown of the Laywards’ last few days as a family unit before Miri matriculates, recalls an old magazine feature: “Can this marriage be saved?” One would think not. Amy, forever trying to provoke a reaction from her impassive husband, jabs repeatedly, “You really don’t care about anything, do you?”
Tom observes that staying in a long marriage requires acceptance of reduced expectations. He notes wryly: “It’s like being a Knicks fan.” (Like Markovits and Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, Tom is a former basketball player. Amusingly, his description of each character includes a height estimate.)
Driving west, Tom has plenty of time to ponder his disappointments, and Amy’s. He notes that she had hoped he’d be more ambitious; she wanted him to accept a lucrative offer from a top litigation firm that would have paid for private school for their kids. Instead, Amy says, he chose to stay in his “dead end” job at Fordham Law, where he teaches a controversial class on hate crime. He is currently in hot water for his legal input for the defense in a case against an NBA owner for racial allegations. Amy’s take: “Tom loves to stand up for racists.”
Tom’s road trip takes him on a desultory odyssey visiting old friends and family. He finds their lives disheartening. In Pittsburgh, a grad school friend who became an English professor teaches “dead white men” and is having an affair with a graduate student. In South Bend, his younger brother is distressed over limited access to his kids after a divorce. In Denver, a college teammate urges him to see a guy at UCLA who wants to bring a case about systemic discrimination against white American basketball players.
His old high school girlfriend, who leads a busy life in Las Vegas as a single, late-life parent, urges him to steer clear of the case. When she also tries to talk about his alarming health symptoms (puffiness, breathlessness), he stonewalls her. “I forgot what you’re like,” she tells him, eerily echoing Amy. “You don’t really care about anything.”
At each stop, Tom tries to put a good face on his trip by telling his hosts that he’s thinking of writing a book about pickup basketball across the country. He also confesses, “I may have left Amy.” “You may?” his brother says.
Tom exacerbates Amy’s longtime presentiment of abandonment by ignoring most of her calls. Periodically, he checks in late at night, and they circle around what’s going on. “God, you’re cold,” she says when his explanations leave her wanting. His response? “Okay.” When he confides that he’s feeling “a little adrift…I can’t seem to get a grip on anything,” she surprises him by responding, “Me neither.” It’s a start.
In a 2006 interview with Yale Daily News, Markovits’ alma mater, he said, “I like to write about what it is like to become happier, although no one has ever been able to spot happiness in my books.”
You don’t have to look too hard to spot glimmers of happiness behind the missteps and misconnects in this ultimately moving probe of life, love, family and marriage across years and miles.
Can you say no to a friend’s wedding?
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Are we spending too much on other people’s weddings?
Going to a friend’s weddings can be so fun and meaningful… but it can also really hurt your wallet. A survey by LendingTree found that 31% of people who had been to a wedding in the past five years had accrued debt to attend. So what’s driving up the cost of weddings for guests? And what makes it so hard to say no to these expenses?
Brittany breaks it down with Allyson Rees, senior analyst at trend forecasting firm WGSN, and Annie Joy Williams, assistant editor at The Atlantic.
This episode was produced by Liam McBain, with additional support from Corey Antonio Rose. It was edited by Neena Pathak. Our Supervising Producer is Cher Vincent. Our Executive Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
After the eight-day-long fire in a 500,000-square-foot Boyle Heights warehouse, eastern Los Angeles residents are contending with putrid smells, soot and potentially hazardous airborne chemicals after heavy plumes of smoke spread throughout the city. But those who grow food in nearby neighborhoods may also be wondering: How will the fires affect the plants and produce in my garden?
The Boyle Heights warehouse, owned by Lineage — a global temperature-controlled storage facility operator — housed 85 million pounds of frozen food and other products. In the days since the fire, local emergency visits for smoke inhalation and throat pain spiked while agencies still scramble to measure the amount of PM 2.5 — harmful fine particles — and heavy metals, like lead and arsenic, in the air.
According to researchers, any toxic airborne chemicals would likely stem from the charred foam insulation, metal exterior, burned solar panels and any lithium batteries that might have been present inside the warehouse.
After a fire, heavy metal particles can spread through ash and smoke over gardens and inhibit growth, said Olukayode Jegede, an agricultural toxicologist and assistant professor at UC Davis. Since the warehouse fire is so recent and cleanup has just begun, Jegede said the precise impact on gardens can’t be measured until comprehensive soil tests are conducted in the area.
While the L.A. city government hasn’t announced plans for soil testing, the Contaminant Level Evaluation and Analysis for Neighborhoods project at USC is offering free contaminant testing for Boyle Heights and East L.A. residents. Residents can collect soil samples and deliver them to Boyle Heights City Hall and other locations for an evaluation of lead, arsenic, chromium and mercury levels.
The good news is produce, plants and roots can still be preserved. According to Jegede, many of the soil tests conducted last year in the Altadena area after the Eaton fire showed that gardens and poultry were not as contaminated as one might expect.
“Quite a number of the soils we tested [in Altadena] were not really contaminated,” Jegede said. “We weren’t seeing many soils with concerning elevated levels of metal, so gardeners should not be too alarmed when these things happen.”
Nevertheless, there are several measures that gardeners can take to keep themselves, their children, plants and produce safe from potentially harmful contaminants stemming from the fire. Researchers, gardening experts and horticulturists offered some guidance on the handling, recultivation and cleanup that can keep you and your garden in good health.
How do I remove ash and contaminants from my garden?
Altadena horticulturist Leigh Adams said Boyle Heights plants and produce already live in a difficult environment, surrounded by industrial warehouses that spread contaminants daily.
“That area has been used industrially for 100 years, and the soil is impacted by many, many, many things,” Adams said. “Low-income neighborhoods and gardens usually don’t have a lot of resistance against dominant manufacturing.”
This means that the contamination of gardens in eastern L.A. won’t be as catastrophic as compared with those in Altadena, a more suburban environment, Adams said. But fallen ash still poses major health risks if ingested or inhaled.
An advisory from University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources last year recommended suiting up in an N95/KN95 mask, long sleeves, pants, close-toed shoes and gloves before attempting to deal with ash in the garden to limit exposure to potentially toxic contaminants. The advisory added that individuals should make sure all of this gear is cleaned thoroughly before bringing it back inside.
Once in the proper gear, Adams recommends removing the top two inches of topsoil from gardens, where the highest concentration of contaminants will settle after a fire. Using a plastic bag to collect the soil and disposing of it in the garbage — not green yard waste bins — will help to reduce the spread of airborne chemicals.
Gardeners with raised beds are advised to remove approximately six inches of soil, because excess ash can raise the pH level and prevent nutrients from soaking into the soil bed.
After this, watering the garden gently but plentifully will help to promote soil health and get rid of most of the ash present on plant leaves and stems. Adams said replacing the top two inches of soil with store-bought mulch or straw will help to contain any remaining ash and prevent it from spreading any further.
Experts say to avoid using leaf blowers if ash is present in the garden because they can send particles airborne. Doing so will increase the likelihood of heavy metal particles, which can carry lung irritants and carcinogens, being spread and inhaled.
A Boyle Heights resident keep a watchful eye on the fire at the 5,000-square-foot commercial building, which stores 85 million pounds of frozen food.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Is it safe for me to eat produce from my garden?
Several studies, including one from the UC Cooperative Extension of Sonoma County, have shown that consuming produce in a fire-affected area poses minimal health risks.
Jegede said most root vegetables like potatoes and carrots, along with any fruit that has an outer layer, can be washed to remove potential contaminants, even if they were covered in ash. Peeling the outer layer of your produce can also help to reduce potential risks, he said.
Lettuce and other leafy foods with multiple layers pose a higher risk of contamination, but with a vigorous wash and peeling the outer layers, even the greens can be saved. The County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health recommends soaking leafy produce and fuzzy fruits like peaches in a 10% white vinegar and 90% water mixture.
Jegede said if the leaves or fruit are too delicate to wash or ash is still visible, it would be best to dispose of the produce.
How can I tell if my soil is contaminated?
After ridding your garden of visible ash, you might wonder how to tell if your plants will still thrive in the soil.
At-home soil tests that measure for alkaline, fertility and pH levels are widely available and can be purchased for $15 to $100 (for more detailed results) online. But Jegede said these tests can’t tell the full story of soil health.
Comprehensive soil testing is “something you can’t do properly at home,” Jegede said. “In labs, we are testing for metals like lithium and zinc, stuff that an at-home test will not show … If it comes to the point that you’re worried about your soil, I would just send it out to a lab.”
Wallace Laboratories in El Segundo, Babcock Laboratories in Riverside, Waypoint Analytical in Anaheim and other labs offer more detailed soil tests that measure heavy metal particles in addition to other fertility factors. Prices at Wallace Laboratories can range from $115 to $295 for a complete compost test.
The soil below two inches should be unharmed, Adams said, so long as new compost is set and plants are watered plentifully, which will promote natural biological cycles.
“What you’re doing is capping the soil, so that moisture stays in there, and instead of being dirt, it’s a living system called soil,” Adams said. “The more carbon we can get into our soil, the better.”
What can I do to help my soil recover?
For the last 12 years, Adams has been working with Metabolic Studio, a Los Angeles-based art and research hub focused on environmentalism, on methods for bioremediation, the practice of using additional fungi, plants and compost to decontaminate ash and break down contaminants.
Adams said straw, mushrooms, corn, rye and sunflowers are great bioremediators that can help to repair damage to soils. She said certain samples she’s worked on with Metabolic Studio have gone from testing at high heavy metal levels to nearly contaminant-free.
But for a more immediate fix, wash your produce, water your plants and have a little patience during ash cleanups. Your garden should look better in no time, Adams and Jegede said.
Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston in Obsession.
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Focus Features
Two big horror films, Obsession and Backrooms, just smashed all box office expectations. So much of their success has been driven by Gen Z, which is now the biggest moviegoing demographic. But what makes a movie a Gen Z movie? Today we’re bringing you an episode of NPR’s It’s Been a Minute. Host Brittany Luse talks about this trend with Sam Adams and Reanna Cruz.
If you want to hear more about these movies, check out these episodes:
In ‘Obsession,’ love hurts. It really, really, really hurts.
‘Backrooms’ brings YouTube horror to the big screen
Zendaya brings ‘The Drama,’ we bring the spoilers
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