Forever Fifty
In her seventh collection of verse homilies the prolific Viorst ( How Did I Get to Be Forty and Other Atrocities ) offers mild-mannered complaints about and righteous jubilation in honor of aging--specifically, turning 50. "No, I'm not ashamed of my age," she declares, observing that maturity brings wisdom, though various vexations ("Face lift, or no face lift--that is the question") follow close behind. Interspersed with her gripes is commonsensical advice: when youthful "fantasies of magic and of mystery" prove impractical, a spirit of compromise (the "sweet pleasures of an ordinary life") will come in handy. Though displaying her knack for penning advice columns in a conversational verse form, Viorst is not a poet, either major or minor: her lackadaisical, thudding rhymes and metrics owe more to the prosaic rhythms of coffee-break chitchat than to the sprightly, simple domestic music of traditional American-made doggerel. Literary Guild alternate.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an alternateHardcoveredition.