Late-life love
Subtitle: a memoir
By: Susan Gubar
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2019
Language: eng
Number of pages: 337
ISBN-13: 9780393609578
Subjects: Older women; Love in literature; Love in old age; Women college teachers; Spouses; Biography
Description: "Tender, unsparing, poignant. . . . [A] love story that braids together intimate self-revelation with a rich meditation on the literature of aging.'-- Stephen Greenblatt. On Susan Gubar's seventieth birthday, she receives a beautiful ring from her husband, a gift that startles her into an appreciation of their luck. As she contemplates their sustaining relationship, Susan considers how older lovers differ from their youthful counterparts--and from ageist stereotypes. When her husband encounters age-related disabilities, Susan procrastinates over moving from their burdensome house in the country to a more manageable town apartment by searching out literature on the longevity of desire by authors from Ovid and Shakespeare to Toni Morrison and Marilynne Robinson. During subsequent months of care-giving, her own ongoing cancer treatments, and apartment-hunting, Susan studies the obstacles many older couples overcome and marvels at the passion that buoys her own relationship. A memoir proving that love and desire have no expiration date, Late-Life Love is a resounding retort to negative valuations of old age and a celebration of second chances"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Thanksgiving; title: A second chance; title: Signs of decline; title: Falling in love; title: The trace; title: Props; title: Alterations; title: Lovesickness; title: What's love got to do with it?; title: Late-life lechery; title: Sunsets; title: Cupidity; title: Wrinkled in time; title: Give and take; title: Tequila mockingbird; title: Wintering; title: Silver threads among the gold; title: Recounting the ways; title: Enormous changes at the last minute; title: Chrisnukkah; title: Later.