Description: A "dark comedy about life, death, and growing old in post-9/11 America--a place where terrorist paranoia and end-of-the-world hysteria masks deeper fears about mortality; a place where the broken medical system leads one character to quip, 'Kafka wrote slice-of-life fiction.' Characters from Segal's earlier novels are part of the cast whose lives intersect at Manhattan's Cedars of Lebanon emergency room--where doctors have noticed a marked up-tick in Alzheimer victims"--
Review Quotes: A New York Times Notable Book 2013
"The novel's comedy beats back the darkness."--New York Times Book Review "At once wry and poignant."
--New Yorker "Acerbic, compassionate, astonishingly keen, very funny."
--Boston Globe "Extremely funny."
--Wall Street Journal
"A daring novella that manages to be funny and wise."
--O, The Oprah Magazine
"One of the rare writers who combines art, eccentricity, honesty, and wisdom."
--Chicago Tribune
"Both funny and tragic, delightful and dizzingly complex."
--Los Angeles Review of Books "Segal's narrative unfolds in snapshot scenes... The well-crafted and respectfully comedic depictions of the aged grant this book much of its mind and heart."
--Eileen Battersby's Books of the Year 2014, The Irish Times "A dark comedy... Segal grounds her premise in the most real and authentic detail, exposing the impatience and self-interest of families, as they try to discover what is going wrong."
--The Independent (UK) "Biting, irreverant."
--Sunday Times (UK) "An intriguing blend of black farce and modern horror... Ripe with metaphysical resonance and, at times, Segal comes across as a bit like Beckett with a flamboyant sense of humour. Best of all is her prose style."
--Metro (UK) "Segal continues to best the best of them with her light hand and heavy comedy."
--Globe and Mail (Canada) "Glorious."
--Maclean's (Canada) "Rare insight into the human character that is at once humbling and shamelessly enjoyable to behold. "
--Publishers Weekly "A masterwork...Both wise and deeply enjoyable."
--Cynthia Ozick, author of Foreign Bodies "No one writes like Segal -- her glittering intelligence, her piercing wit, and her dazzling insights into manners and mores, are a profound pleasure. From first to last I loved this wise and irreverent novel."
--Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy "I always feel in her work such a sense of toughness and humor.... Her writing is sad and funny, and that makes it more of both."
--Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad "If America had anything resembling a wise elder, or cared to, it would be Lore Segal, and Half the Kingdom would be her moving, blackly-comic revelation."
--Shalom Auslander, author of Hope: A Tragedy "I have never read such an astonishing book about old age. It's remarkable. This woman is one of the best writers I've ever had the privilege of reading."
--Ayelet Waldman, author of Love and Treasure "Lore Segal is a marvelous and fearless writer. No subject is too hard, too absurd, or too painful for her wise peculiar and brilliant fiction."
--Lily Tuck, author of The News from Paraguay