Woman of a Certain Rage

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Reading the book I was remembering Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things and Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop. And through all the book I had the feeling that the BBC could make a wonderful short series out of it.

A visit to the family narrowboat The Tempest makes things even worse as Eliza discovers that Paddy has been keeping secrets from her. She decides to take drastic action and do something that is so far out of her comfort zone and try and find the old Eliza. Thank you Avneet at Head of Zeus for my copy of proof and for my invitation to the tour. Eliza is frazzled and she is angry. 50 and with two children and a husband who she loved dearly. Life has taken over and now she is really stressed out.Safire’s column was prompted by a reader who’d been surprised by this headline in the paper: “3 Explorers of a Certain Age, Scaling Mountains and More.” The explorers were three men in their 80s. Reading the book I was remembering Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy and Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop. And through all the book I had the feeling that the BBC could make a wonderful short series out of it. A: The expression “a certain age” is generally used now (often tongue in cheek) as a euphemism to avoid saying a woman is middle-aged or older. The book is well paced and it is very easy to engage with the likeable Eliza, who tells her story in the first person. Starting the book I was unsure that it was really something that I would enjoy, but several chapters later I found that I was wrong about that. Despite the difference in gender and the biological issues that creates, I was able to relate to quite a lot that Eliza was describing.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes “a certain age” as a time “when one is no longer young, but which politeness forbids to be specified too minutely: usually, referring to some age between forty and sixty (mostly said of women).”

In Amatory Tales (1810), Honoria Scott uses it positively: “Mrs. Cleveland was a woman of a certain age, and handsome person; her understanding intelligent and cultivated; she had moved much in the circles of fashionable life.” But after struggling to raise media interest, she was ready to give up. Friends urged her to keep going, which was just as well. Last month, her campaign suddenly took off — on television, radio and in newspapers. The phrase was repopularized in a 1979 book by the psychotherapist Lillian B. Rubin, "Women of a Certain Age: The Midlife Search for Self," in which midlife spanned 35 to 54. A smart and funny novel about love, life, and a second shot at freedom for rebellious women of a certain age.

I really enjoyed this book which has much that women in their 50s will relate to. Eliza is coping with a growing family, older relatives and as an actress, she was finding that work opportunities were becoming few and far between. Added to this, she was dealing with the many changes and hot flushes brought about by the menopause. Liz Byrski is a writer and broadcaster with more than 40 years experience in the British and Australian media. She is the author of eleven non-fiction books and five novels, and her work has been published in national and international newspapers and magazines. I love that autism features as a big part of the story and think it's important for neurotypical people to know more about it. That’s a bit of a pity, made even more so by the fact that it’s a very enjoyable read, says a man of a certain age.Women have been taught from a young age that expressing anger is ‘unbecoming’ and makes them seem ‘hysterical’. Meanwhile, boys in the playground can actively show rage and there are rarely repercussions. This translates into more gendered behaviour later in life, where there is a knee-jerk reaction to women showing anger in professional life and beyond. What I really enjoyed about this collection is that it shows the many facets of this translation, and how it can affect all walks of life. Life can be full and vibrant again – together, we will form a group that will empower you to live life to the fullest no matter your age. As it's written in the first person, her experiences and thoughts are clear and oh so familiar. Many of us will know the changes you feel as a parent of growing children, the fear of your own parents' mortality, and the way others see aging women.

Liz was born in London and spent most of her childhood in Sussex. As an only child she spent a lot of time alone, much of it buried in books. She began her working life as a secretary and later moved into journalism working as a reporter on a local newspaper until she took up freelance writing when her children were born. Before moving to Western Australia she also worked as an appeals organiser for Oxfam. I refer to Lousie Hay's "Shoulding Exercise" which is in her book You Can Heal Your Life https://www.louisehay.com/ Positive Intelligence - Shirzad Charmaine & Anne-Marie Draycott https://www.positiveintelligence.com When I wrote the book in 1979,” she told Safire, “the ‘women of a certain age’ were in their late 30’s and early 40’s. I think that has changed with the baby boomers and the lengthening of the life span. I’d say the ‘certain age’ has now moved to the age of 50 or 55.” Woman of a Certain Age' is the debut novel of Fiona Walker's alter ego Georgie Hall. As Fiona she writes multi character comedies, to my surprise I have only read one and that was in 1994, 'French Relations', her first published novel. Maybe I should rectify this!

The Sydney Morning Herald

Eliza is marvellous as the fierce warrior of the piece, waving the banner for women the world over, allowing Hall to shoot straight from the hip by telling it like it is, and the way she does this as part of such an engaging and heart-warming tale is an absolute triumph. She covers so many themes here alongside highlighting the reality of the menopause - dealing with grief; family dynamics; taking the time to really talk, listen and understand amid the non-stop merry-go-round of modern life; having the courage to take life by the horns; and deftly examining sexual politics, discrimination and equality too. What transpired was this book, 20 wildly different explorations of what rage meant to each of the writers, from discovering their Aboriginality and reconnecting to their heritage and culture, exposing the dreadful neglect of an elderly relative, explaining how a childhood character in a book became the model to inspire anger and writing, the dreadful and life changing impact of a ‘bad acid trip’, exposing society’s response to perceived disabilities, to second (third?) wave feminism, immigration detention and climate change. Yet Clark’s experience was a reminder of another unexpected breakthrough for middle-aged women in a different part of the world. The success of the so-called Teal independents in last month’s Australian election was predicted by almost no one.