A  New York Times  Notable Book The renowned  New Yorker  writer and Pulitzer Prize finalist delivers a hilarious, poignant, and profoundly moving tale of living, loving, and aging in America today At Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, doctors have noticed a marked uptick in Alzheimer’s patients. People who seemed perfectly lucid just a day earlier suddenly show signs of advanced dementia. Is it just normal aging, or an epidemic? Is it a coincidence, or a secret terrorist plot? In the looking-glass world of  Half the Kingdom— where terrorist paranoia and end-of-the-world hysteria mask deeper fears of mortality; where parents’ and their grown children's feelings vacillate between frustration and tenderness; and where the broken medical system leads one character to quip, “Kafka wrote slice-of-life fiction”—all is familiar and yet slightly askew. Lore Segal masterfully interweaves her characters’ lives—lives that, for good or for ill, all converge in Cedar's ER—into a funny, tragic, and tender portrait of how we live today. “Lore Segal may have come closer than anyone to writing The Great American Novel.”  — The New York Times   “I always feel in her work such a sense of toughness and humor . . . Her writing is sad and funny, and that makes it more of both.”  —Jennifer Egan, author of  A Visit from the Goon Squad A New York Times Notable Book 2013 “The novel's comedy beats back the darkness." — New York Times Book Review “At once wry and poignant." — New Yorker “Acerbic, compassionate, astonishingly keen, very funny." — Boston Globe “Extremely funny." — Wall Street Journal “A daring novella that manages to be funny and wise." — O, The Oprah Magazine “One of the rare writers who combines art, eccentricity, honesty, and wisdom." — Chicago Tribune “Both funny and tragic, delightful and dizzingly complex." — Los Angeles Review of Books “Segal’s narrative unfolds in snapshot scenes... The well-crafted and respectfully comedic depictions of the aged grant this book much of its mind and heart." — Eileen Battersby's Books of the Year 2014, The Irish Times “A dark comedy... Segal grounds her premise in the most real and authentic detail, exposing the impatience and self-interest of families, as they try to discover what is going wrong." — The Independent (UK) “Biting, irreverant." — Sunday Times (UK) “An intriguing blend of black farce and modern horror… Ripe with metaphysical resonance and, at times, Segal comes across as a bit like Beckett with a flamboyant sense of humour. Best of all is her prose style." — Metro (UK) “Segal continues to best the best of them with her light hand and heavy comedy." — Globe and Mail (Canada) “Glorious." — Maclean's (Canada) “Rare insight into the human character that is at once humbling and shamelessly enjoyable to behold. " — Publishers Weekly “A masterwork...Both wise and deeply enjoyable." — Cynthia Ozick, author of Foreign Bodies “No one writes like Segal — her glittering intelligence, her piercing wit, and her dazzling insights into manners and mores, are a profound pleasure. From first to last I loved this wise and irreverent novel." — Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy “I always feel in her work such a sense of toughness and humor…. Her writing is sad and funny, and that makes it more of both." — Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad “If America had anything resembling a wise elder, or cared to, it would be Lore Segal, and Half the Kingdom would be her moving, blackly-comic revelation." — Shalom Auslander, author of Hope: A Tragedy “I have never read such an astonishing book about old age. It’s remarkable. This woman is one of the best writers I’ve ever had the privilege of reading." — Ayelet Waldman, author of Love and Treasure “Lore Segal is a marvelous and fearless writer. No subject is too hard, too absurd, or too painful for her wise peculiar and brilliant fiction." — Lily Tuck, author of The News from Paraguay LORE SEGAL is the author of the novels Lucinella , Other People's Houses , Her First American and the story collection Shakespeare's Kitchen, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is the recipient of an American Academy and the Institutes of Arts and Letters award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an O'Henry Award and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker , The New York Times , Harper's Magazine, The New Republic and other publications. At eighty-five years old, Segal lives and writes in New York City.