Carolyn G. Heilbrun (1926–2003)

As a young woman, Carolyn Heilbrun made a resolution not to live past "three score years and ten." Taking her own life at the age of seventy, she reasoned, would lend clean closure to a life well lived, and would keep her from the many tragedies of aging--becoming a burden to her children, witnessing the deterioration of her body, falling prey to a crippling disease. But on the advent of her seventieth birthday, she looked back on the past ten years and found, to her surprise, that her show more sixties had been the happiest decade of all: after fifty years, her marriage had matured into a happy balance of companionship and respect for solitude; she had developed deep friendships with her grown children and a small circle of peers; she had mastered a highly successful career as a scholar and writer. In the poignant, essayistic writing that best showcases her elegant talent and provocative mind, Carolyn Heilbrun celebrates the many pleasures of a mature life.
Filled with wisdom, knowledge, wry humor, and literary allusion, "The Last Gift of Time" is a moving book for all women invested in the pursuit of leading a woman's life to its fullest capacity. show less

Kate Fansler is at a bit of a loose end having just published her more recent academic work, so when a publisher invites her to lunch in order to pitch a new investigative job to her, she is intrigued. Particularly so once she learns that the publisher wants her to delve into the life of the wife of a Great Author of the modernist period, a man who achieved high acclaim by centering a novel on the interior life of a woman, who most people suppose was modeled on the wife. As she begins to show more contemplate the work, Kate is eager to meet and talk with three women whose lives were all intertwined with the Foxx family, but they all have secrets of their own to keep…. I’ve been reading the Kate Fansler mysteries a bit at a time, sometimes feeling exasperated with the character and sometimes cheering her on. This, the 10th (of, I think, 14 in total) in the series is actually far and away my favourite so far, largely because Kate meets her match in the three women she encounters and so her tendency toward archness is sharply curbed. I also liked the second part of the novel, which is in the form of a memoir of one of the three women and which is completely different from the usual tone in these books. I don’t know that it’s necessary to have read the earlier books in the series, but certainly a basic knowledge of the myth of Ariadne and Theseus is helpful; very highly recommended! show less

Professor Kate Fansler takes over a house in the countryside to sort through the correspondence between a deceased publisher and the luminaries he published, including James Joyce. She also reluctantly takes on her nephew, a troubled young boy who, it is hoped, will thrive with the undivided attention of a tutor. She also has an assistant in her literary work, and a visitor in the shape of assistant district attorney Reed Amhearst, along with two invited guests, both female professors at the show more end and the beginning of their careers respectively. When a local woman who is notorious for her unpleasant personality dies, accidentally shot to death by the tutor using a gun that had never previously held live bullets, Kate feels that she must find out who loaded the gun in order to save her household from ignominy at the very least….This is the second Kate Fansler mystery, published in 1967, and it’s quite a delight, especially in terms of the language. The characters spend pages chatting about obscure stories by James Joyce, the realm of academia and other esoteric matters. At the same time, the difference in attitudes between the 1960s and the 2020s is striking: for example, after Reed has proposed to Kate (and been turned down), and they have an argument about how best to deal with the legal situation, he notes that they should marry because “if it’s not exactly legal to beat your wife, it’s less illegal than to beat a woman to whom you’re not related in any way.” This is presented as banter, but it is also an example of how such treatment of women was condoned in the United States in 1967. Chilling. Such commentary on my part aside, however, this is quite a fun read; recommended, keeping in mind that the world was indeed a different country then. show less

Patrice Umphelby, a history professor and novelist, has killed herself by walking into a lake with stones in her pocket. Unfortunately this occurred on the campus of an East Coast women’s college, which is unhappy about the notoriety ithas caused, and Kate Fansler is recruited to look into this event with an eye toward restoring the school’s reputation. When Kate learns that Patrice was indeed planning to commit suicide, only not just *then*, she decides that something rather more show more sinister must have been going on…. As usual, this seventh novel in the Kate Fansler series is replete with quotations and pithy moments, especially with regard to the need for women’s colleges, the pros and cons of womens’ studies programs, and the overarching theme of death and perceptions about death. I especially enjoyed the discussions of womens’ studies because so many of the rants against the idea ring so hollow (and did when this book was written in the early 1980s). Kate herself is always engaging and although I’m getting tired of the frequent drinking/smoking scenarios, at least the author acknowledges those by making wry comments about how old-fashioned Kate’s habits are! Quite fun overall; recommended. show less