The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty [Paperback]

Carolyn G. Heilbrun (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 1998

When she was young, distinguished author and critic Carolyn Heilbrun solemnly vowed to end her life when she turned seventy. But on the advent of that fateful birthday, she realized that her golden years had been full of unforeseen pleasures. Now, the astute and ever-insightful Heilbrun muses on the emotional and intellectual insights that brought her "to choose each day for now, to live." There are reflections on her new house and her sturdy, comfortable marriage; sweet solitude and the pleasures of sex at an advanced age; the fascination with e-mail and the joy of discovering unexpected friends. Even the encroachments of loss, pain, and sadness that come with age cannot spoil Heilbrun's moveable feast. They are merely the price of bountiful living.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Years ago Carolyn Heilbrun, a long-time feminist (Writing a Woman's Life) who also writes mysteries as Amanda Cross (The James Joyce Murder), decided to leave before age dragged her down by committing suicide at 70. Fortunately, she reneged, and chose instead to chronicle moments from her 60s. Always erudite, often deliciously wry, if sometimes pretentious, Heilbrun hits the mark more often than not in this book of essays. She speaks of "unmet friends" whose lives have paralleled her own and blessed deliverance from the academic bustle and backstabbing of Columbia University, the tyranny of memory, and foolish feminine clothes. Throughout, her sense of renewal is as welcome as her determination to go against the grain. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The word "gift" in German means "poison" and, to a linguist, the title might imply some bitterness. Heilbrun, former Columbia University English professor and noted literary critic, is a woman who obviously chooses her words well. Threading through the 15 essays is the theme of her youthful intention to commit suicide when she turned 70; several of the chapters convey the tone of an apologia for not having done so. The essays reflect and resonate with the general female experience of growing old: comfort in established family and home, loss of socially construed femininity, and a certain resentment at having been too often ignored or dismissed by the prevailing (male-dominated) culture. Heilbrun (The Education of a Woman) concedes that the past was probably not better than the present, only different, and looks to the young, especially her children, to teach the significance of those differences: "Those gentler times to which we old hark back imprisoned and excluded too many of us." In her most poignant chapter, "The Family Lost and Found," Heilbrun tells of her rediscovery of the courageous and intelligent immigrant women who were part of her father's family, although he had not seen fit to tell his only daughter about them. Her rediscovery of that lost half of her family, late in her life, was both encouraging and bittersweet. Heilbrun offers observations and stories, not lessons or polemics, but she is a perceptive witness to the vagaries of life.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; Ballantine Books ed edition (April 7, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345422953
• ISBN-13: 978-0345422958
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful...I'm sending a copy to my sister..., June 25, 2001

By 

Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty (Hardcover)

Heilbrun is a bit older than me, I'll be 60 next year, and I thank her for writing THE LAST GIFT OF TIME-LIFE BEYOND SIXTY. I like the book so much, I am sending a copy to my sister who is also approaching the big 6-0. Over and over again Heilbrun has written just the book I needed to read at just the time I needed to read it--LIFE is "right on time." (Other books I've enjoyed include TOWARD A RECOGNITION OF ANDROGENY, REINVENTING WOMANHOOD, AND WRITING A WOMAN'S LIFE). Heilbrun is one of my "unmet" friends (described in THE LAST GIFT OF TIME).

Reading the younger reviewer who obviously didn't "get" Heilbrun causes me to suspect 1)she does not work with men; and/or 2) she is not old enough to appreciate what her older female "sisters" have accomplished. Women struggling with the daily Chinese water-torture of patronizing and discounting males in the workplace (never subtle), and/or older women who lived through the 50s and 60s who were not allowed to attend "men's" schools or hold "men's" jobs will appreciate Heilbrun. (As will enlightened men.) Although the women's movement has accomplished much, much remains to be done. As Heilbrun points out, until the preference for male babies ends and the existence of "pompous, self-satisfied, established males" is terminated, the movement is not over.

Heilbrun's chapters are conversational, newsy, and cheerful. They contain the sort of friendly advice you seek from an old friend. Yes, get a computer and learn how to use email. My aunts in their 80s have learned how to log on and write mail to each other and their children and nieces and nephews. Like Heilbrun's family, we are a reconnected family again. If you have an older relative, help them become computer literate.

Heilbrun says enjoy slacks!!! I laughed out loud when I looked in my old 1959 high school year book and recalled that we girls were "allowed" to wear pants to school one day a year, the day we worked on the homecoming floats (I'm not given to looking backwards, the younger gals in the office wanted me to bring my yearbook to work so I checked it out beforehand to make sure it contained no embarrasing moments). I also had the unpleasant experience in 1973 of being "thrown out" of the commisary at the local army post because I had had dared to enter the store wearing pants. I had a full cart of groceries and was in the check-out lane. I had to go home with my three children under age 10 in tow, change clothes and drive back to the store and start all over again. You better believe Heilbrun's chapter "On not wearing dresses" stuck a cord with me.

In "The dog who came to stay" Heilbrun shares her experiences with Bianca the Black Shepherd. She says a dog can get you out for that walk you need every day and provide you with all the unconditional love you can stand. Her section on men is equally informative. She says, if you get a cat you should expect he will scratch the furniture, and you make up your mind you will tolerate his "catty" behavior because you love him--don't try to change his nature. If you can be tolerant of your pets habits, you can be tolerant of your husband's habits too. She also recommends nailing underwear to the floor.

Heilbrun says reading is a wonderful pastime in retirement, but if you haven't been a reader, you're not likely to start when you retire. However, you should develop a hobby and have something to look forward to after you leave the workplace for good (or else keep working like my 72-year old husband).

Heilbrun has written several biographies, and lists biographies as one of her favorite "reads." Her chapters on Gloria Steinem and May Sarton are quite good--particularly the section on Sarton, whose literary executor she is. I appreciated Heilbrun's thoughts on Sarton's rages against male publishers, and Maxine Kumin's uphill fight for recognition. This is a great book for women moving into their older years, and some men will enjoy it too.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good News Bad News, August 21, 2005

By 

Colleen A. Preston (North Carver, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty (Paperback)

If you are in your sixties, seventies, or beyond - or even if you are a precocious fifty-year-old, there is much to be had in this ultimately enigmatic series of essays by feminist, scholar, activist and mystery hound Carolyn Heilbrun. Thoughtful, introspective, funny and only occasionally cantankerous, Heilbrun strikes many a familiar chord in examining the oddly satisfying process of aging, if not gracefully, at least with some unexpected zest.

Heilbrun wore many hats in her life - her book Writing a Woman's Life is now a classic feminist study. She has a huge and richly deserved reputation as a scholar of Virginia Woolf as well as the Bloomsbury era in general. In popular culture, Heilbrun is probably best known by the pseudonym Amanda Cross, author of the Kate Fansler mystery series. She spent most of her academic career at Columbia University and speaks in these essays of her dismay at her experiences there and her relief at finally retiring.

Heilbrun is generous in sharing her inner life but never quite explains the puzzles. She was an ardent feminist, patriarchal enemy to the core. She deplored society's requirement that women dress the role and ultimately gave up dresses altogether. She slants towards androgyny and regards bisexuality as just a moving point on a line. She devotes a whole chapter to May Sarton, the poet, novelist and essayist who was her contemporary and her friend. Sarton was a tempestuous, oft ill-tempered lesbian who, much to her own dismay, found most public appreciation with the publication of her numerous journals recounting her rural life in New Hampshire and Maine.

But despite all of this, Heilbrun was a wife and mother and lived a seemingly contented life with her husband. The fact that, at the age of 68, she bought a home of her own where she often stayed, sans husband, seemed to her quite ordinary. In her personal life, there seemed to be little of the cacophony that marked her work and her times.

But the enigma of Carolyn Heilbrun lies mainly in her oft-vocalized determination to commit suicide at the age of 70 when, presumably, all usefulness and joy would be gone from life and ending it would avoid all of the nastiness involved in the endgame. But 70 came and went and she makes much in The Last Gift of Time of her decision to go on. Life, it seems, still had a lot to offer and that is what she offers us. These later years can be so rewarding that many women are quite shocked by this unexpected gift.

But, having read the book, and being inspired by that message, it is a bit disconcerting to learn that in 2003, at the age of 77, Heilbrun actually did commit suicide. By all accounts, there was no hint that this was to happen. Her husband and children were profoundly shocked, as were her friends . On the day she died, a Tuesday, Heilbrun walked through Central Park with a friend - something the two had done every Tuesday for 26 years. All seemed normal. Heilbrun was her usual self. The only possible hint, and a very thin one, was that at one point Heilbrun said "I feel sad". When the friend asked what she felt sad about, Heilbrun responded "The universe". And then she went home and put a plastic bag over her head.

Knowing the eventual outcome of Heilbrun's journey certainly changes the flavor of this book but it is difficult to say whether the message is diluted or enhanced. I, personally, was taken aback and re-read the book to see what I might have missed but did not find anything significant. It is still a book well worth reading and it has a lot to say to us "women of a certain age". But, despite its insight and its wisdom, what it mostly affirms is the unpredictability of life. And that, I suppose, is a good thing.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three cheers for aging!, July 29, 1999

By 

mary bergan blanchard - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty (Hardcover)

She paints it as a freeing experience, and I felt as if I were in Carolyn's presence as she sat cozy in an arm chair, fire blazing, glass of wine in hand, having an honest conversation with me, her friend. The unabashed truthfulness, the scathing remarks about her pompous male confrees at Columbia, the tender realization of her longing for her husband's company - the entire book - a wry but warm delight. I recommend it to anyone fifty or over. The young would never understand.