Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Aging

British academic Segal (Is the Future Female?), a professor of psychology and gender studies at London’s Birkbeck College, gracefully explores the subject of aging in this combination memoir and analysis. Segal outlines fears about growing older and discusses our culture’s ingrained negative attitudes about the elderly female body, as well as men’s fear of losing their masculinity as they age. The author also highlights the joys of love and sexuality as one grows older. The book’s most politically charged section addresses the inevitable effects of the increasing class divide on the elderly; the younger generations, hit hardest by the recession, blame the baby boomers for the poor economy, while the older generations are already struggling with the fact that financial security is necessary for aging happily. While Segal seamlessly incorporates psychoanalytic theory and passages from writers like Simone de Beauvoir, John Updike, and Alice Walker, she also offers her own perspective as a feminist and scholar, reminding readers that the process of aging is never simple or straightforward. (Nov.)