Aging: An Apprenticeship

Nan Narboes 56 thoughtfully selected essays offer an intimate and lyrical account of aging through the decades.Authors Judy Blume Andrew McCarthy Gloria Steinem Donald Hall David Shields Ursula K. Le Guin and others draw from their own experiences describing a specific decades losses and gains to form a complex and unflinching portrait of the years from nearing fifty to ninety and beyond. In six sections these detail-rich essays paint an accessible picture of nearing 50 the 50s 60s 70s 80s the 90s and beyond with equal parts humor and insight. Drawing on seven decades worth of experiences the selected essays offer a clear-eyed composition of narratives each narrative as important as the one before it. In Paul Caseys Katie Couric Is No Friend of Mine a colonoscopy not a red convertible marks his initiation into mid-life. Germaine Koh in Thoughts on Aging is the oldest player in her roller derby league confounded by her changing body. Ursula K. Le Guins Dogs Cats and Dancers: Thoughts about Beauty meditates on human self-consciousness--it is aging humans who find their bodies surprising. And in Death Donald Hall rejects euphemisms: hes not going to pass away; hes going to die.