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I was a little nervous about reading Everyman. I didn't know if I wanted to subject myself to a book I knew was going to be such a downer, nor was I in a hurry to be reminded that I'm going to die one day and that growing old will be a terrifying experience.

But now that I've finished it, I don't think it'll keep me up at night like I had thought it would. This book is less about the horror of facing your inevitable death, and more about the hell you can create for yourself in old age if you lived like a bastard your whole life.

I know Phillip Roth would punch me in the face for saying this, but I think that even though he so vehemently argues against religion in Everyman, the book actually kinda creates a case for, if not religion, then at least living by some kind of moral code. I got the feeling that if his protagonist had just been a better person, the difficulties of old age and impeding death wouldn't have been so terrible. In the end, Everyman, for me, was about how old age is bad but loneliness is worse.