Jan 5, 2026 · 45 min · 17 segments
MS NOW journalist (and Palisades native) Jacob Soboroff says covering the 2025 wildfires was the most important assignment he's ever undertaken. His new book, ‘Firestorm,’ offers a minute-by-minute…
Jacob SoboroffGuest
Tonya MosleyHost
Maureen Corrigan
Michel MartinHost
Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Ben Markovitz's novel, The Rest of Our Lives.
Ben Markovitz's novel, The Rest of Our Lives, was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize and has just been published here in the US.
Our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, says it's the perfect little literary novel to curl up with, especially if winter weather has you feeling cooped up.
Tom Leyward, the narrator and main character of Ben Markovitz's new novel, The Rest of Our Lives, introduces himself in a curious way.
On the very first page of the book, he talks matter-of-factly about the affair his wife, Amy, had 12 years ago when their two kids were young.
Amy, who's Jewish, got involved at a local synagogue in Westchester.
Tom, who was raised Catholic and clearly not a joiner, remained on the sidelines.
At the synagogue, Amy met Zach Zersky, who Tom describes as, "The kind of guy who'd dance with all the old ladies and little pigtailed girls at a bar mitzvah so he could also put his arm around the pretty mothers and nobody would complain." After the affair came out, Tom and Amy decided to stay together for the kids, a boy named Michael and his younger sister, Miriam.
When Miriam goes to college, you can leave, too." "The deal," Tom says, "helped me get through the first few months when we had to pretend that everything was fine." 12 years have since passed, and the marriage has settled back into a state of okay-ness.
And because Amy is having a tough time with Miriam's departure, Tom alone drives her to campus.
And once Tom drops Miriam off, he just keeps driving westward without explanation to us or to himself as though he's a passenger in a driverless car that has decided to carry him across the mighty Allegheny and keep on going.
The three-page scene here where Tom passively melds into the transcontinental traffic flow constitutes a master class on how to write about a character who is opaque to himself.
"You don't feel anything about anything," Amy says early on to Tom, an accusation that's pretty much echoed by Tom's old college girlfriend, Jill, whom he spontaneously drops in on at her home in Las Vegas after being out of touch for roughly 30 years.But if Tom is distanced from his own feelings and vague about the issue he had with a couple of students that forced him to take a leave from teaching in law school, he's a sharp diagnostician of other people's behavior.
What fuels this road trip is Tom's voice, by turns wry, mournful, and oh so casually astute.
There's a strain of Richard Ford and John Updike in Tom's tone, which I mean as a high compliment.
Take for instance how Tom chats to us readers about a married couple who are old friends of his and Amy's.
Chrissy was maybe one of those women who derive secret energy from the troubles of her friends.
Her husband, Dick, was a perfectly good guy, about 6'2", fat, and healthy.
As Tom racks up miles, taking detours to visit other folks out of his past, like his semi-estranged brother, his meandering road trip accrues in suspense.
Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Ben Markovitz's novel, The Rest of Our Lives.
Ben Markovitz's novel, The Rest of Our Lives, was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize and has just been published here in the US.
Our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, says it's the perfect little literary novel to curl up with, especially if winter weather has you feeling cooped up.
Tom Leyward, the narrator and main character of Ben Markovitz's new novel, The Rest of Our Lives, introduces himself in a curious way.
On the very first page of the book, he talks matter-of-factly about the affair his wife, Amy, had 12 years ago when their two kids were young.
Amy, who's Jewish, got involved at a local synagogue in Westchester.
Tom, who was raised Catholic and clearly not a joiner, remained on the sidelines.
At the synagogue, Amy met Zach Zersky, who Tom describes as, "The kind of guy who'd dance with all the old ladies and little pigtailed girls at a bar mitzvah so he could also put his arm around the pretty mothers and nobody would complain." After the affair came out, Tom and Amy decided to stay together for the kids, a boy named Michael and his younger sister, Miriam.
When Miriam goes to college, you can leave, too." "The deal," Tom says, "helped me get through the first few months when we had to pretend that everything was fine." 12 years have since passed, and the marriage has settled back into a state of okay-ness.
And because Amy is having a tough time with Miriam's departure, Tom alone drives her to campus.
And once Tom drops Miriam off, he just keeps driving westward without explanation to us or to himself as though he's a passenger in a driverless car that has decided to carry him across the mighty Allegheny and keep on going.
The three-page scene here where Tom passively melds into the transcontinental traffic flow constitutes a master class on how to write about a character who is opaque to himself.
"You don't feel anything about anything," Amy says early on to Tom, an accusation that's pretty much echoed by Tom's old college girlfriend, Jill, whom he spontaneously drops in on at her home in Las Vegas after being out of touch for roughly 30 years.But if Tom is distanced from his own feelings and vague about the issue he had with a couple of students that forced him to take a leave from teaching in law school, he's a sharp diagnostician of other people's behavior.
What fuels this road trip is Tom's voice, by turns wry, mournful, and oh so casually astute.
There's a strain of Richard Ford and John Updike in Tom's tone, which I mean as a high compliment.
Take for instance how Tom chats to us readers about a married couple who are old friends of his and Amy's.
Chrissy was maybe one of those women who derive secret energy from the troubles of her friends.
Her husband, Dick, was a perfectly good guy, about 6'2", fat, and healthy.
As Tom racks up miles, taking detours to visit other folks out of his past, like his semi-estranged brother, his meandering road trip accrues in suspense.
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