Deaf Sentence (2008)

Desmond Bates, the 
 narrator of David Lodge's terrific new novel, Deaf Sentence, is a retired linguistics 
 professor trying to cope with the 
indignities of late middle age — 
specifically, the fact that he is going deaf. He putters benignly about the house while his wife's career blossoms, endures depressing visits with his 
senile father, drinks too much, and begins a potentially dangerous association with an unstable, seductive young graduate student. (She's writing her thesis on suicide notes and likes to be spanked.) Lodge manages to balance Desmond's amusing disquisitions on subjects like Wonderbra ads and 
hearing aids with somber reflections on mortality, a balancing act 
that few authors could pull off with such grace. A—