Adrian Mole - The False Ending and Future

The False Ending and Future

Townsend announced at the time of publication that Adrian Mole - The Weapons of Mass Destruction would be the last book of the series due to her poor health. The series is resolved in the following ways:

• Adrian suffers an emotional crisis after the death of Robert Stainforth, his son Glenn's best friend in the Iraq War; he realises that the war, which he had supported passionately, was fought for bogus reasons; and he faces financial ruin, he has only ever had poorly paid employment, such as working as an offal cook in a fashionable London restaurant. He comes to recognise that he has lived in a dream world and is forced to confront reality.
• Adrian's job in the antiquarian bookstore allows him some stability. His employer, the gentle and unbullying Mr. Carlton-Hayes, hints that he wants him to run the shop after he has retired.
• Adrian's financial nadir passes in an unspecified way, and he is able to get on with his life. (It is left to the reader to decide if he declared bankruptcy or came to a long-term arrangement with his creditors or was rescued by the equity in his Rat Wharf flat; however, it is revealed that he no longer has his car, which was presumably sold to cover some of the debts.)
• Adrian begins a serious relationship (eventually leading to marriage, although the actual wedding is not written about.) with Daisy Flowers, his secret love of most of the book, and fathers a daughter called Gracie. They enjoy a happy, fulfilling relationship.
• His father, who has become wheelchair-bound, his mother and Animal (his real name), who has assisted them in converting two pigsties into living quarters (one of which Adrian, Daisy and Gracie live in at the end of the book) live together in a consensual ménage à trois.
• Pandora continues as an MP (albeit a blackballed one), and says that despite their insurmountable differences, she still likes Adrian very much. After all these years, he is the only person she can talk to freely. In her autobiography Out of the Box, she describes him as her first romantic interest and gives an unflattering, but honest, account of his shortcomings.
• In the last entry, Adrian concludes that keeping a diary is only for unhappy people. Daisy then asks why he is starting one again. Adrian says he wants to start an autobiography but she says that other people will find him uninteresting.

As the diary ends, the whole decades-spanning Mole Saga seems to come to a ragged but hopeful conclusion.

In an interview on Leicester hospital station Radio Fox on 5 June 2008, Townsend said that she was in fact writing a new Mole book entitled The Prostrate Years. Townsend said that the book was likely to be published in Spring 2009. Penguin listed a 'new Adrian Mole' among their highlights for books to be released in 2009. The book retailer Amazon has since listed the book and audio CD of 'The Prostrate Years' as available for purchase, with a release date of November 5, 2009. In October 2009 the Leicester Mercury featured an interview with Townsend where she discussed the new Mole book and her (prospective) plans for future works.

Townsend has stated in letters to her fans that she is working on a new Adrian Mole book, due for release in November 2013.