Passages; Predictable Crises of Adult Life

Toronto: Bantam Books, 1984. later printing. Mass market paperback. Good. xii, 564 pages. Occasional footnotes. Notes and Sources. Bibliography. Index. Cover has some wear and soiling. Gail Sheehy (born Gail Henion; November 27, 1936 - August 24, 2020) was an American author, journalist, and lecturer. She was the author of seventeen books and numerous high-profile articles for magazines such as New York and Vanity Fair. Sheehy played a part in the movement Tom Wolfe called the New Journalism, sometimes known as creative nonfiction, in which journalists and essayists experimented with adopting a variety of literary techniques such as scene setting, dialogue, status details to denote social class, and getting inside the story and sometimes reporting the thoughts of a central character. Many of her books focused on cultural shifts, including Passages (1976), which was named one of the ten most influential books of our times by the Library of Congress. Sheehy penned biographies and character studies of major twentieth-century leaders, including Hillary Clinton, both presidents Bush, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. Her book, Daring: My Passages (Sept. 2014), is a memoir. Sheehy's article "The Secret of Grey Gardens", a cover story from the January 10, 1972, issue of New York, brought the bizarre bohemian life of Jacqueline Kennedy's aunt Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and cousin Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale to public attention. Their story was the basis for the film Grey Gardens and a Broadway musical of the same name. At last, this is your story. You'll recognize yourself, your friends, and your loves. You'll see how to use each life crisis as an opportunity for creative change -- to grow to your full potential. Gail Sheehy's brilliant road map of adult life shows the inevitable personality and sexual changes we go through in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond. The Trying 20s -- The safety of home left behind, we begin trying on life's uniforms and possible partners in search of the perfect fit. The Catch 30s -- illusions shaken, it's time to make, break, or deepen life commitments. The Forlorn 40s -- Dangerous years when the dreams of youth demand reassessment, men and women switch characteristics, sexual panic is common, but the greatest opportunity for self-discovery awaits. The Refreshed (or Resigned) 50s -- Best of life for those who let go old roles and find a renewal of purpose. Derived from a Kirkus review: Struck by the failure of the age to do for adults 'what Gesell and Spock did for children,' Gall Sheehy recently undertook remedial measures in a much-discussed series of articles in New York magazine, installments of a larger taxonomic effort designed to confer on adults the benefits of the managing, measuring zeal that has transformed our perception of our children. The finished product will land with a splash. It incorporates a great deal of painstaking research, elaborate case histories, and a fair amount of common sense; it projects an empathy which some will find irresistible. The "Trying Twenties," the "Deadline Decade" of the Thirties, the sexual cross-purposes of the Forties will perhaps assume new intelligibility for some forlorn map-seekers, but they had better belong to the right scout troop. These are the lives of "America's 'pacesetter group'--"healthy, motivated middle class people."