Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

by Buchan, Elizabeth

• ISBN13: 9780670032068
• ISBN10: 0670032069
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-02-10
• Publisher: Viking Adult

Summary

For twenty-five years, Rose Lloyd has juggled marriage, motherhood, and career with remarkable success. It has been a life of family picnics, books and wine, a cherished house, and her own exquisitely designed garden-sunny and comfortable. But then the carefully managed life to which Rose has become accustomed comes crashing down around her when-over the course of a few days-her marriage and her career both fall apart. Can Rose, whose anguish is barely softened by the ministrations of friends and grown children with their own problems, ever start over? Not easily. But it's amazing what prolonged reflection, the slimming effect of a lost appetite, a new slant on independence (and a little Parisian lingerie) will do. Especially when an old flame suddenly reappears. Full of humor, clever insight, and a whimsical sense of the absurd, Revenge of the Middle-Aged Womanis an irresistible and finely written fantasy for anyone who ever wondered what a certain age would look like from beyond the looking-glass-and who will find it ripe with promise that the best days are yet to come.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Buchan is the author of several highly acclaimed and bestselling books of fiction, including the bestselling Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, The Good Wife Strikes Back, Everything She Thought She Wanted, and Consider the Lily.

Excerpts

Chapter 1"Here," said Minty, my deputy, with one of her breathy laughs, "the review has just come in. It's hilariously vindictive." She pushed toward me a book entitled A Thousand Olive Trees by Hal Thorne with the review tucked into it. For some reason, I picked up the book. Normally I avoided anything to do with Hal but I did not think it mattered this once. I was settled, busy, different, and I had made my choice a long time ago. When we first discussed my working on the books pages, Nathan argued that, if I ever achieved my ambition to become the books editor, I would end up hating books. Familiarity bred contempt. But I said that Mark Twain had got it better when he said that familiarity breeds not so much contempt but children, and wasn't Nathan's comment a reflection on his own feelings about his own job? Nathan replied, "Nonsense, have I ever been happier?" and "You wait and see." (The latter was said with one of his ironic, strongman I know-better-than-you smiles, which I always enjoyed.) So far, he had been wrong. For me, books remained full of promise, and contained a sense of possibility, any possibility. In rocky times, they were saviors and lifebelts, and when I was younger they provided chapter and verse when I had to make decisions. Over the years of working with them, it had become second nature to categorize them by touch. Thick, rough, cheaper paper denoted a paperback novel. Poetry hovered on the weightless and was decorated with wide white margins. Biographies were heavy with photographs and the secrets of their subjects' life. A Thousand Olive Treeswas slim and compact, a typical travelog whose cover photograph was of a hard, blue sky and a rocky, isolated shoreline beneath. It looked hot and dry, the kind of terrain where feet slithered over scree, and bruises sprouted between the toes. Minty was watching my reaction. She had a trick of fixing her dark, slightly slanting eyes on whoever, and of appearing not to blink. The effect was of rapt, sympathetic attention, which fascinated people and also, I think, comforted them. That dark, intent gaze had certainly comforted me many times during the three years we had worked together in the office. " 'This man is a fraud,' " she cited from the review. " 'And his book is worse . . . ' " "What do you suppose he's done to deserve the vitriol?" I murmured. "Sold lots of copies," Minty shot back. I handed her A Thousand Olive Trees. "You deal. Ring up Dan Thomas, and see if he'll do a quickie." "Not up to it, Rose?" She spoke slowly and thoughtfully, but with an edge I did not quite recognize. "Don't you think you should be by now?" I smiled at her. I liked to think that Minty had become a friend, and because she always spoke her mind I trusted her. "No. It's not a test. I just don't wish to handle Hal Thorne's books." "Fine." She picked her way round the boxes on the floor, which was packed with them, and sat down. "Like you said, I know how to deal." I am not sure she approved. Neither did I, for it was not professional behavior to ignore a book, certainly not one that would receive a lot of coverage. My attention was diverted by the internal phone. It was Steven from production. "Rose, I'm very sorry but we are going to have to cut a page from Books for the twenty-ninth." "Steven!" "Sorry, Rose. Can you do it by this afternoon?" "Twice running, Steve. Can't someone else be the sacrificial lamb? Cookery? Travel?" "No." Steven was harassed and impatient. In our business-getting an issue out-time dictated our decisions and our reactions. After a while, it became second nature, and we spoke to each other in a shorthand. There was never time for the normal give and take of argument. I glanced at Minty. She was typing away studiously, but she was, I knew, listening in. I said reluctantly, "I could manage it