Weary, battle-hardened reflections on growing older
infuse this latest collection of essays by novelist and former New York
Times columnist Quindlen (Every Last One). Having chimed in copiously in
previous memoirs on now familiar talking points such as raising
children, finding life’s balance as a working mother, achieving marital
harmony and doling out feminist lessons to three grown children,
Quindlen has found one nut to polish in a gratifying sense of survival
on her own terms. Now in her late 50s, having lived much longer than her
mother, who died when Quindlen was 19, the author finds herself shocked
to hear herself referred to as elderly, and no longer troubled by the
realization that her sense of control over events is illusory. In essays
such as “Generations” and “Expectations,” she is careful to pay homage
to the women like her mother who grew up before the women’s movement and
thus had fewer choices. Yet Quindlen sees much work still to be done,
especially in breaking glass ceilings and in assumptions about women’s
looks—including her own. Cocooned in her comfortable lifestyle between a
New York City apartment and her country house, surrounded by
accumulated “stuff” that is beginning to feel stifling, certain of her
marriage-until-death and support of her BFFs, Quindlen holds for the
most part a blithe, benign view of growing older. Yet in moments when
she dares to peer deeper, such as at her Catholic faith or within the
chasm of solitude left by children having left home, she bats away her
platitudinous reassurances and approaches a near-searing honesty. (May)
--Staff (Reviewed April 2, 2012) (Publishers Weekly, vol 259, issue 14,
p)
Library Journal:
Before she published six best-selling novels (e.g.,
Every Last One ); wrote her million-copy best seller, A Short Guide to
the Happy Life ; and won a Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column
"Public and Private," Quindlen attracted eager readers with her Times
column "Life in the 30s." Now she's in her fifties and ready to talk
about women's lives as a whole. With an eight-city tour and lotsof
promotion. --Barbara Hoffert (Reviewed December 1, 2011) (Library
Journal, vol 136, issue 20, p94)
Kirkus:
A humorous, sage memoir from the Pulitzer winner and
acclaimed novelist. Like having an older, wiser sister or favorite aunt
over for a cup of tea, Quindlen's (Every Last One, 2010, etc.) latest
book is full of the counsel and ruminations many of us wish we could
learn young. The death of her mother from cancer when she was 19 had a
profound effect on the author, instilling in her the certainty that
"life was short, and therefore it made [her] both driven and joyful" and
happy to have "the privilege of aging." In her sincere and amusing
style, the author reflects on feminism, raising her children, marriage
and menopause. She muses on the perception of youth and her own changing
body image--one of the "greatest gifts [for women] of growing older is
trusting your own sense of yourself." Having women friends, writes
Quindlen, is important for women of all ages, for they are "what we have
in addition to, or in lieu of, therapists. And when we reach a certain
age, they may be who is left." More threads on which the author
meditates in this purposeful book: childbirth, gender issues, the joy of
solitude, the difference between being alone and being lonely,
retirement and religion. For her, "one of the greatest glories of
growing older is the willingness to ask why, and getting no good answer,
deciding to follow my own inclinations and desires. Asking why is the
way to wisdom." A graceful look at growing older from a wise and
accomplished writer--sure to appeal to her many fans, women over 50 and
readers of Nora Ephron and similar authors.(Kirkus Reviews, April 1,
2012)
