Temptations of the third age

Book of the week / Person Hilary Boyd is deemed to be the founder of the gran-lit (literature for grannies). Her first novel – The Thursdays in the Park – appeared when she was 62, and the main character is of the same age. In a few weeks Jeanie turns sixty. The closer the date, the more her husband and then her daughter and her son-in-law remind her about the age, implying that the life is over, she must give up her work, sell the store, move out from London to the country and commit herself to taking care of her husband and granddaughter. She loves her granddaughter. And her husband too – against all the odds. Ten years ago, after twenty two years of marriage he suddenly jumps off the marital bed “as if a scorpion has just crawled across the sheet” and with the words “I can’t do it anymore” he flees to the spare room. At first she begs him to explain what happened, maybe there’s someone else, or maybe she did something wrong… but then she gives up. Her husband refuses to talk about it, he still is caring, even more than before, but his anxiety and the desire to control every step she makes are driving her crazy. “At your age”, “soon you’ll get tired”, “you’ll retire”, “old girl”, “you can’t do that at your age”… Do what? She doesn’t feel old. She’s mad at her husband and she’s trying to spend as much time as it’s possible away from him. And one day while walking in the park with her granddaughter… I think it’s clear what happened in the park. She met another man – strong, sexy, a good listener, who understands her – and her perfectly established, steady life went down the drain. Female characters in the novel are very convincing, male characters – more like a scheme. The son-in-law, brought up by his despotic mother, went through a traumatic experience and as a result became neurotic and selfish; her charming husband who also had a traumatic experience in the childhood that surfaced unexpectedly when he turned fifty. As a journalist Hilary Boyd wrote several books about depression and the step-parent’s problems, for many years she wrote a Mind, Body, Spirit column for Daily Express, and apparently hence – the psychoanalysis attempt in the novel. The man whom she met in the park, the man who virtually ruined her marriage is outlined in broad strokes. This is typical for women’s fiction and in this book it doesn’t really matter. The novel is not about him – it’s about her. About her doubts and turmoil, about her fear to hurt her husband, with whom she has spent almost all her life, about the fear of losing her daughter who thinks that falling in love at sixty is a whim, and about the fear of making a fool of herself in front of her son-in-law who doesn’t understand her anyway. And finally - about denying her age, indicated in the passport. Although it really is a “literature for grannies”, reading the novel would benefit their grown-up children as well. Especially in Russia where women retire at fifty five. Maybe then they will understand why their mothers don’t want to commit themselves only to their grandchildren, why they don’t want to spend time sitting on the bench, digging up the garden-beds and cooking. No doubt you can’t run away from your age, but the less it’s left the more the lust for life. P.S. By the way “the grannies” apparently are very grateful readers. The novel is translated into twenty languages; only in Great Britain more then 100 000 copies were sold.

03-10-2014

Literary Newspaper