"The Rest of Our Lives: illustrates Eric Erikson's psychosocial stage of midlife, which spans ages 40 to 65.

Erikson avers that midlife asks us to navigate between generativity (creative output) and stagnation.

Literary devices, including metaphor and plot structure, epitomize the protagonist's struggle.

Ben Markovits’s novel The Rest of Our Lives follows the protagonist Tom Layward as he struggles to resolve a midlife crisis, not one in the usual sense of the term but rather as defined by psychologist Erik Erikson as "Generativity vs. Stagnation," the psychosocial stage of life spanning ages 40 to 65. Generativity comprises the feeling that you are contributing to society in valuable ways, be it by good parenting or meaningful work, that what you do matters and will have a positive impact. Stagnation involves the sense that you’re not contributing positively, that your life is, for the most part, meaningless or useless. Generativity brings well-being and satisfaction, while stagnation leads to self-absorption, a sense of isolation, and general malaise or depression.

Although Erikson has been criticized for failing to take into account that people can revisit the challenges of earlier stages, or anticipate those of later ones, and that different cultures might have goals that differ from the ones he describes, the broad parameters of his paradigm nevertheless apply for most people. Who in middle age doesn’t reflect on the past and wonder about the future?

Markovitz's novel begins as Tom is........

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