Happy Now?

mandy — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Claire’s husband Jay killed himself on Valentine’s Day by jumping off a balcony at a colleague’s party. He didn’t leave a suicide note; he left a binder with detailed information about life insurance, their cat’s veterinary records, and a short, cryptic note under the tab marked “Claire” that revealed almost nothing about his decision. A long-suffering depressive, Jay had never displayed signs he would end his life… at least, not any Claire or his therapist had noticed.

Happy Now? begins in the days after Jay’s death, during which Claire has temporarily moved into her pregnant sister’s guest house to hide from the world until she’s ready to reemerge. Jay’s sister calls to bitterly remind Claire that “there is enough blame to go around,” and Fang, Jay’s cat, is inconsolable and seemingly also attempts to follow her master into the afterlife by eating a poisonous plant. Claire’s father parks outside her temporary home for fourteen hours at a time and follows her everywhere she goes in a strange mix of protective paternalism and stalker-like behavior. At one point, Claire mistakenly attends the wrong group therapy session and ends up telling off its members. At other times, unable to stop herself when asked, she blurts out “Jay killed himself,” often at the least opportune times.

Happy Now? might be what fellow writer Elaine Beale once called a “quiet” novel. The bulk of the story centers on Claire’s relationship with her family, and with herself, blended with flashbacks to the early days of her relationship and the small warning signs that only appear significant in the aftermath of Jay’s suicide. Claire’s ability to reflect on her relationship in the wake of tragedy was fascinating and raw, and even the most basic logistics of how to put her life back together were mesmerizing—perhaps because the experience is quite removed from my own, and yet familiar enough to feel comfortable.

Even without one major incident to lift the story arc in the novel, I was enthralled by Katherine Shonk’s vivid detail and ability to climb inside the mind of a shocked and grieving abruptly widowed young woman. So captivated by the way the novel focused on the particulars of Claire and Jay’s life—and Claire’s parents’ and sister’s relationships as well—I read the book over the course of a few hectic days, a pre-bed ritual of reprieve from the madness of my own life. If fiction is meant to be a journey and as escape, this book succeeds on both counts.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, September 6th 2010

The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure In The 25 Years After 50

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

Farrar Straus and Giroux

It turns out that Madonna is not the queen of reinvention. That title belongs to Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, who truly is reinvention royalty. Lawrence-Lightfoot’s The Third Chapter offers a wise and uplifting guide to creating a new life or to drastically improving the one you’ve got. Although the bulk of advice is directed at folks actually in their “third chapter”, anyone in need of a transformation can benefit from Lawrence-Lightfoot’s advice and from the experience of the forty post-fifties she interviews.

As Lawrence-Lightfoot points out, our society expects seniors to retreat. But the book’s subjects—all in their fifties, sixties, or seventies—refused to see their “third chapter” as retrenchment or, worse, stagnation. Rather, they viewed their third chapter as an opportunity to resurrect old dreams and to create new ones.

The characters include a doctor who decides to study opera singing, a policy wonk who leaves a prestigious position to attend divinity school, and a successful businesswoman who becomes a relief worker in Kosovo. Many others revisit artistic passions. In one poignant story, a former professor begins painting a portrait of her best friend. Over time, as she tweaks and shades, her own face emerges from the canvas. As this new artist and so many of Lawrence-Lightfoot’s subjects discover, the post-fifty years are prime time for discovering one’s true voice and for new learning.

New learning is the crux of The Third Chapter and it is a theory from which readers of any age can benefit. Paradoxically, the first step to new learning is unlearning. Successful unlearning means dropping the unhealthy habits that most of us have picked up by high school: people-pleasing, guilt, aggressive competition, valuing external rewards over self-fulfillment, measuring ourselves by others’ high and low expectations, and allowing the harsh critical inner voice to suffer from terminal logorrhea. These are traits, practically reflexes, that many women will recognize. Appropriately, the theories of Mary Catherine Bateson and Carol Gilligan figure prominently.

Unlearning is only the first step, but once taken, self-consciousness, fear, and other limitations drop away. Only then can new learning kick in. Lawrence-Lightfoot, one of new learning’s pioneers, provides an excellent description of the extraordinary ways it pays off. A willingness to embrace collaboration, to take risks, and to practice strategic restraint (i.e. talking and acting less, listening and observing more) all turn out to be great methods for identifying and following one’s true passions and for hearing one’s own unadulterated voice. New learning also includes embracing struggles and setbacks as additional sources of knowledge, not as confirmation that one’s self-doubt was well placed (that’s so old learning).

While new learning requires maturity and experience, its principles can be applied at any age and with potentially unlimited benefits. By the end of the book, I was wondering why I hadn’t figured all this out already (I know, the self-chastising is ripe for unlearning) and equally pondered the unexpected and shocking revelation that, according to Lawrence-Lightfoot, at age forty-eight I am almost into the third chapter myself.

The meaningful takeaway is well summed up by someone else who accomplished much in the third chapter: “It’s not the years in your life, but the life in your years [that matter]." Abraham Lincoln said that; he became president at age fifty-two.

Written by: T. Tamara Weinstein, March 16th 2010