Customer Reviews

Late-Life Love: Romance and New Relationships in Later Years

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Late-Life Love was what I hoped for. Not deathless prose, but an interesting and helpful series of personal stories of people like me and my honey, who have found love again in late life. We're 79. Each chapter is one couple's story, each one different. Most couples are heterosexual but a pair of Gay male lovers is included, and also a pair of Lesbians who have found each other. Some live together, some don't, and some are separated by geography as we are. Some marry, some know they will not, for various reasons as good as ours. As soon as I finished it I mailed it to him to read. The book is useful to us as we try to negotiate our way through geographic separation, needs of each of our extended families, and the knowledge that we are not getting younger. We will be referring to it again. Thank you for it.

Connie Goldman excels as an interviewer. Late Life Love is the second book of interviews I have read by Goldman. She has a knack of making people comfortable and gently extracting personal information that she puts into an enjoyable, readable form from which we can learn.

Although I am not a candidate for another romance since I am still with my husband of forty-eight years, I found useful tidbits within which could liven up the ole relationship. Goldman includes interviews with both partners in twenty-two relationships. The majority of them are not married, but they are committed. Considering the social values of the times in which we grew up, this initially surprised me. Studies do show, however, that as we mature, we realize that how we feel, rather than what society demands of us, becomes more important in later years. In my opinion, this is progress.

Romance and sexual relationships are important for these senior love birds. Touching and caring for one another remain high on their list of priorities. Although no graphic details are included, there is every indication that there is life in the old boy [and girl]. That those in the third third of life feel zest and vitality is an affirmation for all of us who have yet to reach that time in our life cycle. Having just viewed the movie, Young at Heart, and having just finished this book, I'm excited about what is ahead. Those who think that old age is all decline need to change their perspective.

by Judith Helburn

for Story Circle Book Reviews

reviewing books by, for, and about women