Book Synopsis

"Discovering the midlife progress novel, Gullette finds in recent fiction a pervasive tension between decline and a new ideology of aging. Appropriately, she invites the reader to join the writers in their therapeutic discourse." --Rosemary Franklin, American Literature.

"[This] book certainly makes you think. What is it that can happen in middle age to make it, as it is for many people, the clearest and sweetest time of life?" --Frank Conroy, The New York Times

Review Quotes

"Bracing, deft, witty, unflappable, and disarming." --Kathleen Woodward, author of Aging and Its Discontents

"In terms of breadth of vision, scholarly integrity, and the sheer exhilaration of her writing, Gullette's work is essential reading." --Mike Hepworth, Aging and Society

About the Author

A pioneer in age studies and one of the most influential cultural critics on middle ageism and ageism, Margaret Morganroth Gullette is also the author of the prize-winning Agewise, Aged by Culture, and Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife. She is a resident scholar in women's studies at Brandeis.