On the HahaFiction shelf
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife
Audiobook available · 10 hr 50 min
Eighty-two-year-old widower Fred Fife is broke and alone when someone mistakes him for Bernard Greer, a resident of Wattle River Nursing Home. Being taken in gives him shelter and people to care about. It also leaves him trying to manage a life that belongs to somebody else.
From the publisher’s blurb
“Fingers crossed his poker face is in better nick than his prostate”Read the full description at Penguin Books Australia
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What makes it funny?
Fred’s manners survive an opening encounter with a corpse. While trying to recover the body after seagulls disrupt his attempt to get help, he passes wind and apologizes, then remembers that the dead man cannot smell it.
The comedy at work
Fred tries to help and explain himself, but physical mishaps and his own politeness keep making things worse. Once the staff decide he is a confused resident, his efforts to correct the mistake fail to dislodge their assumption.
Try this if…
Fred offers company for readers drawn to later-life friendship and second chances. The affectionate nursing-home story also makes room for bodily jokes and an extended case of mistaken identity.
Good to know
A dead body appears in the opening. Bereavement, threatened homelessness and dementia are part of the story’s treatment of aging and loneliness.
A few distinguishing details
- An accidental nursing-home resident living under another man’s name
- A man who apologizes to a corpse for passing wind
More funny contemporary & literary
Sources & further reading
- Publishers Weekly review
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- Audiobook listing
Book information
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