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 cearest and sweetest time of life?”—Frank Conroy, New York Times

A pioneer in age studies and one of the most influential cultural critics of the midlife, Margaret Morganroth Gullette is also the author of the prize-winning Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife. She is a Resident Scholar in Women's Studies at Brandeis.