Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Nov 2018
272 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
During a difficult year, acclaimed writer Susan Gubar celebrates her lasting partnership and the reciprocity of lovers in later life.
On Susan Gubar's seventieth birthday, she receives a beautiful ring from her husband. As she contemplates their sustaining relationship, she begins to consider how older lovers differ from their youthful counterparts - and from ageist stereotypes. While her husband confronts age-related disabilities that effectively ground them, Susan dawdles over the logistics of moving from their cherished country house to a more manageable place in town and starts seeking out literature on the changing seasons of desire.
Throughout the complications of devoted caregiving, her own ongoing cancer treatments, apartment hunting, the dismantling of a household, and perplexity over the breakdown of a treasured friendship, Susan finds consolation in books and movies. Works by writers from Ovid and Shakespeare to Gabriel García Márquez and Marilynne Robinson lead Susan to appraise the obstacles many senior couples overcome: the unique sexuality of bodies beyond their prime as well as the trials of retirement, adult children, physical infirmities, the multiplications or subtractions of memory, and the aftereffects of trauma.
On the page and in life, Susan realizes that age cannot wither love. A memoir proving that the heart's passions have no expiration date, Late-Life Love rejoices in second chances.
"Starred Review. Gubar's wise, honest, and frequently humorous work reveals that even amid the inevitable struggles of old age, personal and conjugal reinvention is not only quite possible, but also quite possibly lovely - both in literature and in life." - Publishers Weekly
"In a book filled with wit, candor, and poignancy, the author concludes, 'late-life love may heat at a lower temperature, but it bubbles and rises.'" - Kirkus
"Susan Gubar's Late-Life Love is a tender, unsparing, poignant answer to this question, a love story that braids together intimate self-revelation with a rich meditation on the literature of aging." - Stephen Greenblatt
"With her characteristic candor, wide-ranging intelligence, and sympathetic humor Susan Gubar has given us another astonishing memoir, of what she calls 'late-life love' and its vicissitudes. So vividly does Susan Gubar write, so richly, visually, and even aurally does her prose spring to life, it's as if we are taken by the hand by the memoirist and led through the adventures of the life she and her beloved husband live in the shadow of illness and aging." - Joyce Carol Oates
"An insightful, wry, and honest look at the physical and emotional aspects of late-life love, intertwining personal memoir with literature, philosophy, and popular culture. Gubar's brilliantly composed book offers a delightful primer for all readers interested in this most under-examined topic." - Henry Louis Gates
This information about Late-Life Love was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Susan Gubar was awarded, with Sandra M. Gilbert, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Book Critics Circle. She is the author of Memoir of a Debulked Woman and has authored and edited numerous works of criticism. She writes the monthly online New York Times column "Living with Cancer" and lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
