Review by New York Times Review
LONGEVITY BREEDS LITERATURE. As people (including writers) live longer thanks to medical advances, we can expect many more books contemplating the vicissitudes of aging, illness and dying. These topics, previously thought uncommercial, not to mention unsexy, have been eloquently explored recently by Diana Athill ("Somewhere Towards the End"), Roger Angell ("This Old Man") and Christopher Hitchens ("Mortality"), among others. Now that the baby boom generation, defined as those born between 1946 and 1964, "enter life's last chapter," Michael Kinsley writes, "there is going to be a tsunami of books about health issues by every boomer journalist who has any, which ultimately will be all of them." Hoping to scoop the others, he has written "Old Age," a short, witty "beginner's guide," with an appropriate blend of sincerity and opportunism. Kinsley is a well-known columnist for Vanity Fair; contributor to The New Yorker; former editor of The New Republic, Harper's and other periodicals; founder of Slate; and frequently seen liberal commentator on television. His distinguished career had been turning him into something of a public pundit when, in 1993, at the age of 43, he learned he had Parkinson's disease. For eight years he tried to keep his condition secret, understandably. "Anyone who develops a chronic disease in midcareer dreads being written off - being thought of prematurely in the past tense." Despite the commiseration of co-workers, a yuppie may find that "guess what? You've had your last promotion." Though Kinsley mastered denial (a practice he advocates slyly) and bluffed good health, eventually his physical symptoms became too obvious and he outed himself with a column in Time. After going public, he found himself the object of intense scrutiny and unwanted sympathy. "There are people who now only see the Parkinson's - like the woman at a dinner party who offered to cut my meat into pieces for me even though she had just seen me wolfing a first course with no trouble." Still, the book refuses to wallow in self-pity or offer triumphalist narratives of overcoming victimhood. Rather, Kinsley is intent on being wryly realistic about coping with illness and the terminal prospects ahead. He makes fun of a fellow boomer, Larry Ellison, the C.E.O. of Oracle, who has spent millions in a quest for eternal life, and who was quoted as saying, "Death has never made any sense to me." Kinsley quips: "Actually the question is not whether death makes sense to Larry Ellison but whether Larry Ellison makes sense to death. And I'm afraid he does." He is equally sardonic on the prospect of losing one's marbles. "Of the 79 million boomers, 28 million are expected to develop Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. ... That adds up to about 35 percent, or one out of three." Lest the vain ones think they can better their odds by living right, he adds: "They are jogging every day but will get Alzheimer's anyway." Once he learns that Parkinson's, thought simply as a "movement disorder" that makes parts of the body shake or stiffen, can also adversely affect intellectual capacity, he keeps a close watch on his thinking. There follows a hilarious section in which he submits to a round of cognitive assessment tests, cheating a bit but still dismayed to find that some of his scores have decreased. "Depending on the condition of my brain, should I be looking for a good nursing home? Or should I try to find a worthwhile but relaxing job teaching journalism somewhere?" He tells himself one "can write perfectly pleasant editorials about the coming of spring." Fortunately, the old Kinsley intelligence remains much in evidence here. "The book is supposed to be funny, as well, on a subject that does not lend itself to humor." And funny it is, for the most part. Drawing on his extensive experience as a columnist "whose lifetime output mainly has been a thousand words or so a week commenting on current affairs," he catches our attention quickly, sets up questions that need answering and writes in a clear, conversational, short-sentence manner, addressing the reader with rhythmic little pokes, prods, provocations. His transitions mock tendencies to self-absorption or senior-moment forgetfulness. ("Where were we? Oh yes, I decided to have myself tested.") He makes fun of his own arrogant self-certainty: "I am perfectly willing to believe, on almost any subject, that I'm right and a majority of other people are wrong. That's more or less been the basis of my career in journalism." This jaunty style comes off at times as a little too jokey and glib; but it must be said that he's so good at glibness, he can be forgiven for it. He can move from the anecdotal to the statistical to the aphoristic without any tonal dissonance. Regardless of his assertion that "this is not a book about Parkinson's disease," that condition remains a central preoccupation in the text, the other one being the hopes and worries of the boomer generation. Curiously, what the book is not about, despite its title, is old age. Kinsley, still only in his 60s, has not yet entered the kingdom of the elderly, though he may feel he has been given a precocious peek at it. As kidney stones were for Montaigne a teacher of wisdom and equanimity, so Parkinson's has been for this author. He almost ruins it all with a conclusion recommending that the boomers redeem themselves with a final sacrifice - wiping out the nation's debt. By having the money they leave behind sufficiently taxed when they die, he argues, they could leave a legacy that parallels the Greatest Generation's achievement in World War II. "Boomers, those lazy, self-indulgent bums, those drugged-out draft dodgers, those mincing flower-power hippies who morphed into Wall Street greedheads with nothing left of their culture of peace and love except a paisley tie: We may not have the opportunity to save the world like our predecessors did, but we can save the American economy from the mess our predecessors are leaving." Backtracking a bit from this cockamamie scheme, he nevertheless takes it seriously enough to devote the whole last chapter to it. The real mistake, economic realities aside, is to have abandoned the more charmingly intimate, skeptical persona he had so meticulously built up beforehand, trading it in for a pundit's robes. Some of this book's chapters were published as separate essays in The New Yorker and The Atlantic, and either because of inattentive editing or unavoidable transitional needs, the same information is reintroduced several times - a nuisance in so small a volume but not a great crime. The book is attractively designed and just the right size - 4 5/8 by 6 frac78; - to slip into one's pocket or purse. In short, it's been packaged as a nifty impulse purchase. One could do worse than give in to the impulse. If it's possible for a book about illness and death to be delightful, this one fills the bill. PHILLIP LOPATE, the author of "Portrait Inside My Head," directs the graduate nonfiction program at Columbia University.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 3, 2016]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this collection of eight essays, Kinsley (Please Don't Remain Calm), a columnist at Vanity Fair, a New Yorker contributor, and the founder of Slate, proposes-somewhat facetiously-that life is a game in which all of us are in competition. As such, he asks, what does it mean to "win" at life? Does it pay off to have the most possessions, live the longest, or be remembered best? Kinsley doesn't really present an answer, but it's enjoyable to follow his train of thought. The focus is ultimately on coming to terms with the final chapter of life, which, in Kinsley's case, means coming to terms with being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Throughout, Kinsley showcases his fine writing, tackling a potentially depressing subject with a mixture of humor and serious reflection. Though targeted most specifically to Kinsley's own generation of the baby boomers, the book might be helpful for anyone who has a progressive illness. Readers are almost forced to accept the premise of life as competition, as it appears time and again throughout, and some may find this disconcerting. However, Kinsley's superb prose and well-judged tone-both frustrated and hopeful for the future-make this a valuable book for anyone interested in exploring ideas around life, death, and legacy. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Three new memoirs from boomers address in different perspectives the final frontiers of old age, illness and death, and what has happened along the way. Which approach works best, looking back, analyzing the present, or gazing forward? Each memoirist makes a pretty strong case for their method. Freelance journalist Hertneky's Rust Belt Boy grapples with events of his generation with an examination of his Steel Belt hometown, Ambridge, PA, a Pittsburgh suburb, after the steel turned to rust and the "Burgh Diaspora" occurred. Taught in school to look-optimistically-to the future, instead of back at the area's history and cultural vibrancy, Hertneky reports in a series of thoughtful essays on the traditions of ethnicity, religion, and family that have shaped the community named after the American Bridge Company. Despite the reluctance of longtime residents and aging relatives to tell stories about the old days, Hertneky concludes that the town's formative narratives are carried within him and others, serving as a force in the region's rebirth. Buddhist, playwright, feminist, peace activist and essayist Giammatteo struggled to find balance between her own needs and those of her dying mother as she navigated several tricky years of midlife. An attempt to gain insight into aging without angst led her to employment as a companion to the elderly in Seattle, thousands of miles away from her own parents in Pennsylvania. While the irony of that situation was not lost on her, the lessons she learned negotiating a peace with her difficult and staunchly Christian Science-practicing adoptive mother led the author to the realization that just showing up, or being present for her mother, was the key to living through a difficult state of affairs gracefully. Giammatteo's wry observations about her elderly companions, her own health, and that of her needy mother keep the narrative firmly grounded in the here and now. Finally, Slate founder, New Yorker contributor, -Vanity Fair columnist, and policy wonk Kinsley examines the boomer legacy from the vantage point of his experiences living both with and without Parkinson's disease. His larger concern, however, is with the generation's posthumous reputation. Kinsley's hybrid of the personal and the political essay is enlivened with anecdotes about famous politicos and the author's own medical odyssey, yet the focus remains on how boomers' futures will unfold. Kinsley considers himself an advance scout for the boomers, experiencing in his 50s what the rest of his cohort will go through in their later years. His ambitious (but quixotic) plan for his generation to conquer the national debt is one suggestion Kinsley makes in his call to arms. His greater point is not to be ignored: we're all in this together. VERDICT For those who are navigating middle and old age, these memoirists offer thoughtful observations about the journey, particularly Kinsley, who even provides a suggestion for saving the generation's posthumous reputation.-Therese Purcell Nielsen, -Huntington P.L., NY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A short book about aging and baby boomers that mixes memoir and self-help.One of the highest-profile journalists in America before he made his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease public, Vanity Fair columnist Kinsley (Please Don't Remain Calm: Provocations and Commentaries, 2008, etc.) feels that he has a head start on the rest of his boomer generation on the challenges that aging brings: "Sometimes I feel like a scout from my generation, sent out ahead to experience in my fifties what even the healthiest boomers are going to experience in their sixties, seventies, or eightieswhat I have, at the level I have it, is an interesting foretaste of our shared futurea beginner's guide to old age." With a slowly progressing form of the disease, the author still has his wits about him, as this droll, engaging, often self-deprecating confessional attests, but he knows that others treat him differently and that his career has plateaued before it once might have peaked. He takes the long view on some big questions concerning "the age of competitive longevity"is the goal to live longest? To die when you still have most of your marbles? To leave the best legacy and be remembered longest? He suggests "death before dementia" as a rallying cry: "It is also your best strategy, at the moment, because there's no cure for either one." Most of the chapters were originally published in different forms in national magazines and don't always cohere. The last is the one that fits least, focusing on how the boomers as a whole can counter the narrative that has them squandering the legacy of their Greatest Generation parents by paying down the national debt. As the author recognizes, "besides the tsunami of dementia heading our way, there is going to be a tsunami of books about health issues by every boomer journalist who has any, which ultimately will be all of them." An uneven but ultimately satisfying examination of the importance of "long years of good health, not long years simply breathing in and out." Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
