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The central character endures a retirement in which he is becoming weaker through ill health, despondency and loneliness (even though he had been the life of the party). Now, there isn’t a year that goes when he isn’t hospitalized.
The author writes that “eluding death seemed to have become the central business of his life and bodily decay his entire story.” (p71)
A review of this book can be found at this link: