Counting Backwards
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A middle-aged couple struggles with the husband's descent into early onset Lewy Body dementia in this profound and deeply moving novel shot through with Kirshenbaum's lacerating humor.
It begins with hallucinations. From their living room window, Leo sees a man on stilts, an acting troupe, a pair of swans paddling on the Manhattan streets below. Then he's unable to perform simple tasks and experiences a host of other erratic disturbances, none of which his doctors can explain. Leo, 53, a research scientist, and Addie, a collage artist, have a loving and happy marriage. They'd planned on many more years of work and travel, dinner with friends, quiet evenings at home with the cat. But as Leo's periods of lucidity become rarer, those dreams fall away, and Addie finds herself less and less able to cope with an increasingly unbearable present.
Eventually, Leo is diagnosed with early onset dementia in the form of Lewy body disease. Life expectancy ranges from 3 to 20 years. A decidedly uncharacteristic act of violence makes it clear that he cannot live at home. He moves first to an assisted living facility and then to a small apartment with a caretaker, where, over time, he descends into full cognitive decline. Addie's agony, anger, and guilt result in self-imposed isolation, which mirrors Leo's diminished life. And so for years, all she can do is watch him die--too soon, and yet not soon enough.
Kirshenbaum captures the pair's final years, months, and days in short scenes that burn with despair, dark humor, and rage, tracking the brutal destruction of the disease as well as the moments of love and beauty that still exist for them.
About this Author
Binnie Kirshenbaum is the author of the story collection History on a Personal Note and seven novels, including Rabbits for Food, On Mermaid Avenue, Hester Among the Ruins, An Almost Perfect Moment, and The Scenic Route. Her novels have been chosen as Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, NPR, TIME, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post. Her work has been translated into seven languages.
Reviews
Praise for Counting Backwards
Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025
"Binnie Kirshenbaum is a thrilling writer I'd follow anywhere--unflinching, darkly comic, and masterfully stylish--and now, with Counting Backwards, a sage on the intricacies of grief, the self, and what it means to love and live in the face of loss. Sharp, penetrating, and powerful."
--Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman and Godshot
"A novel about the end of life that somehow brims with life, with generosity, humanity, honesty, and, unsurprisingly given the author, bouts of first-class humor. I read all 392 pages in one ten-hour span, unable to stop."
--Gary Shteyngart, author of Our Country Friends
"Counting Backwards is a marvel of modulation--it is beautiful and devastating, heart-wrenching and darkly funny, wry and achingly empathetic. Kirshenbaum has always been a bold and outrageously gifted writer, but this novel is her finest yet."
--Kimberly King Parsons, author of We Were the Universe
"Binnie Kirshenbaum novels are sharp, harrowing, and disarmingly funny at the rawest of moments . . . [Counting Backwards] promises to be a devastating and beautiful read."
--Lit Hub
"Kirshenbaum puts her lively wit to good use, tempering the sadness of her drawn-out depiction of Leo's deterioration and Addie's attempts to wrap her head around the ultimately lonely nature of existence. It's a tour de force."
--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Praise for Binnie Kirshenbaum
"Champagne--the driest, with giddy pinpoint bubbles--to accompany death row's last meal."
--The New York Times
"The writing is splendid . . . and it offers readers a memorable picture of an often wittily acerbic woman trying to find herself in the gray fog of sadness."
--Nancy Pearl, NPR
"Binnie Kirshenbaum is a rare and remarkable writer. I've been waiting anxiously for her new book since the day I finished the last one."
--Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours
"Kirshenbaum's barrage of wit in both expository prose and dialogue has the reader in a titter while contemplating issues of recrimination and forgiveness."
--Philadelphia Inquirer
"[Her characters are] deeply, even ludicrously flawed, but they're not figures of fun because they all carry the existential burden of loneliness . . . funny and compassionate."
--The Washington Post
"A refreshingly gimlet-eyed examination of memory, one that cuts through the gauzy layers imposed by time."
--Time Out New York
"A reality check, sobering truths about family, regret, loss, history . . . Just about the only thing she doesn't serve up is a happy ending."
--The Daily Beast
"The cinematic, effortlessly beautiful descriptions will spark the reader's imagination."
--Chicago Tribune
"Kirshenbaum refuses to corral what is funny or sad into separate camps, but allows one to flip over into the other, creating unexpectedly poignant effects . . . A litany of longing, at once unsettling and deeply moving."
--San Francisco Review of Books
"Binnie Kirshenbaum is a fearlessly unsentimental storyteller, a gifted comic writer and a thoughtful archaeologist of family life."
--Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story
"Writing swift, pointed chapters . . . Kirshenbaum offers hilarious and sage advice in the battle of the sexes. Readers anxious for an entertaining female character to emulate, if only in their fantasies, will find themselves in good company."
--People
"Kirshenbaum has an original voice and, even better, an original sensibility."
--Los Angeles Times
"Bitter truths [are] rendered palatable by the delicious sauciness of Kirshenbaum's prose."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"Binnie Kirshenbaum is an unflinching teller of truths. She's also sublimely funny."
--Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Specultation
"Lyrical and prosaic, laced with sardonic wit, often hilarious, yet filled with an overwhelming sadness."
--The Review of Contemporary Fiction
"Funny, tender, and heartbreaking, often in the same line."
--Tash Aw, author of Map of the Invisible World
"For years, Binnie Kirshenbaum has been one of the funniest and smartest writers we have in the US. Her books have razor sharp teeth and surprising depths."
--Jessa Crispin, Bookslut
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