We should all be in such fine form in our 10th decade. Viorst is as charming, and smart, as ever.
The great humorist, poet, and observer of life passages turns her attention to the “Final Fifth” of life.
Readers just a bit younger than Viorst, who is now 94, may remember growing up with their parents’ copies of It’s Hard To Be Hip Over Thirty and People and Other Aggravations, early collections of Viorst’s light poetry. Along with 14 books for adults, Viorst has authored dozens of children’s books, among them Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The new book completes the adult series and opens with the poem she meant to give her husband Milton for Valentine’s Day 2023; he died a matter of weeks before. This leads her into a discussion of dating and romance at her RC (retirement community) and a poem called “Grow Old Along With Me and My Home Health Aide,” and then a last poem for Milton: “Stop Being Dead.” Between the poems are mordant observations and anecdotes involving friends and associates from the RC, including their views on the possibility of an afterlife. She herself believes such beliefs are what the shrinks call “terror management.” She wasn’t here before, and she won’t be here after. “Do I mind? Do I mind? You bet your sweet ass I mind.” Readers well before the Final Fifth will find plenty to relate to here. You don’t have to be much past 60 to notice that as one grows older, it seems much easier to get one’s feelings hurt, to feel passed over or left out. The idea of marginalization is nothing new, but only Viorst phrases it directly enough to elicit sudden tears. And no one of any age should miss “A Jewish Widow’s Country-Western Love Song.” Always both gracious and culturally acute, she acknowledges the wisdom and saving grace of two favorite poets, Jack Gilbert and Adam Zagajewski.
We should all be in such fine form in our 10th decade. Viorst is as charming, and smart, as ever.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781668068014
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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