Home
/
Fiction
/
Never Change
Never Change
Apr 9, 2026 12:24 PM

Author:Elizabeth Berg

Never Change

'You know people like me. I'm the one who sat in the hall selling tickets to the prom but never going, the one everybody liked but no one wanted to be with.'A self-anointed spinster at fifty-one, Myra Lipinsky has endured the isolation of her middle life by immersing herself in her career as a visiting nurse and by doting on her dog, Frank. Myra considers herself reasonably content, telling herself, It's enough, work and Frank. And is has to be enough - until Chip Reardon, the too-good-to-be-true golden boy she adored from afar whilst at high school, is assigned to be her new patient. Choosing to forgo invasive treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned home from Manhattan to the New England home of his childhood to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence and longing.

Reviews

The edition is a national treasure

—— Michael Shelden , Daily Telegraph

One of the great triumphs of late 20th-century publishing

—— D J Taylor , Independent

You'll enjoy this wild and, in places, wildly funny story- It is all an hilarious send-up of the Dornford Yates style of thriller with some modernistic Sharpe barbs added

—— Daily Express

One of our best contemporary comic writers- very, very funny

—— Birmingham Evening Mail

Excellently funny

—— Auberon Waugh , Daily Mail

He has not written a better or more skilful farce

—— Financial Times

Britain's leading practitioner of black humour

—— Punch

The year's most impressive debut

—— John Carey , Sunday Times

Like Donna Tartt’s "The Secret History" or a good film noir . . . Jane’s low-key narration has just the right tone to keep readers hooked

—— People magazine

The strength of 'The Lake of Dead Languages' is a silken prose that lures the reader into Goodman’s . . . story of murder, suicide . . . revenge, and madness

—— The Washington Post Book World

Part suspense, part coming-of-age, and all-enthralling . . . A book that needs the roar of a fire to ward off its psychic chill

—— The Denver Post
Comments
Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.zzdbook.com All Rights Reserved