And so you’ve reached that time in life when you’re starting to “pick investments over adventure, / And clean over scenic, and comfortable over intense”; when, even though in your heart of hearts you’re much younger, the rest of you is (
how did it happen?
) forty.
Judith Viorst, the wise and witty lady of
It’s Hard to Be Hip Over 30 and Other Tragedies of Married Life,
is here to guide you through these forty-ish years with poems that reflect the highs, the lows, and the everything-in-betweens of midlife. Viorst playfully considers the prospects of sagging kneecaps, awkward college reunions, and fantasies of love in the afternoon; being baffled by one’s Buddhist bisexual vegetarian Maoist offspring; cholesterol counts, adult-education courses and other atrocities of midlife—which somehow aren’t as painful when you can laugh at them.
Filled with warmth, humor, and insight,
How Did I Get to Be 40 & Other Atrocities
is Judith Viorst at her best.