Late-Life Love

“Tender, unsparing, poignant. . . . [A] love story that braids together intimate self-revelation with a rich meditation on the literature of aging.”¯ Stephen Greenblatt

On Susan Gubar’s seventieth birthday, she receives a beautiful ring from her husband, a gift that startles her into an appreciation of their luck. As she contemplates their sustaining relationship, Susan considers how older lovers differ from their youthful counterparts¯and from ageist stereotypes.

When her husband encounters age-related disabilities, Susan procrastinates over moving from their burdensome house in the country to a more manageable town apartment by searching out literature on the longevity of desire by authors from Ovid and Shakespeare to Toni Morrison and Marilynne Robinson. During subsequent months of care-giving, her own ongoing cancer treatments, and apartment-hunting, Susan studies the obstacles many older couples overcome and marvels at the passion that buoys her own relationship. A memoir proving that love and desire have no expiration date, Late-Life Love is a resounding retort to negative valuations of old age and a celebration of second chances.