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“The Sense of An Ending�� is the 2011 Man Booker Prize in literature. It’s a short novel packed with tremendous insight. The novel is a meditation on memory and our innate need to modify or “color�� our idea of our history to fit what we remember, or want to remember.

Tony is our narrator, and he begins the novel explaining his high school years. He was at a boy’s school in the 1960’s. His circle of friends began with three and ended with four. The last, Adrian, was the philosophical one. He seemed far more scholarly and intellectually driven than the other three.

While in school, our narrator, Tony, had a short relationship with a girl named Veronica. Veronica was from a higher-class family, one that felt comfortable in snubbing those deemed unworthy. Unfortunately, Tony received a bit of that snubbing when Veronica brought him home to meet the family.

They broke up, and Veronica and Adrian started dating, asking Tony’s blessing. Tony sent an age-appropriate obnoxious letter back, never hearing from them again.

Tony eventually met a wonderful woman who he married and had a daughter with. He eventually divorced, but kept on good terms with the X. His life seems fine, exactly how he wants it to be as a retired 60-something man.

Tony receives mail from a lawyer informing him that he has been bequeathed a 500 pounds from Veronica’s mother’s estate, along with a possession. This event brings Tony pause, and he unearths his memories of his high school life and his time dating Veronica. More than puzzling is why Veronica’s mother remembered him at all, never mind providing for him in her Will. The meat of the novel begins with Tony’s quest of remembering. My favorite quote:

“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the loner life ones on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.��

This is an amazing novel about narratives; what we tell ourselves about our past. It’s a novel that encourages the reader think about our own narratives.