The Only Story, written by booker-prize winning writer Julian Barnes, is a compelling discussion on love and commitment. A good man, Paul, recounts the only story essential to him. He begins in the early 1960’s, when he is nineteen, and recounts how he fell in love with his forty-eight-year-old tennis partner, Susan Macleod, a married mother of two. He recounts how he, despite Susan’s increasingly draining behaviour, subsequently spent most of his life loving her. Love has been the centre of Paul's life since he was nineteen. In his old age, he continues to reflect on Susan, on his love for her, and on the concept of love itself. The Only Story wastes no words. It manages to leave the reader feeling simultaneously delighted and devastated by how much one devoted man might tolerate for love.
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