537. Memento Mori

Memento Mori
Muriel Spark
1959
Around 230 pages

Welcome to the blog Muriel Spark! Female authors are rare on this List, but we are getting a good group together, with Iris Murdoch, Dorothy Sayers, and Elizabeth Bowen. Keep crushing it ladies.

A circle of elderly rich Brits are all receiving the same phone call: a mysterious voice telling them "Remember you must die." However, they all hear a different voice, so some hear the voice as old, some young, some foreign. Understandably, this ruffles the characters' feathers, and some old secrets bubble to the surface.

What a great premise for a story. It almost felt like a prompt I would get in a creative writing class. I enjoyed our crew of characters, who each experience a different reaction to the phone calls. Lettie Colston completely panics, while Godfrey, a serial cheater, gets angry. This was a great entry point for the characters, and she wrapped up the story in a really unique way.

Proof that the lives of the elderly can still be fascinating. I know my twilight years will hold similar intrigue.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Adapted into television in 1992 with Maggie Smith.

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