Eve Pell

This book was a really interesting concept, but I was a little disappointed with the writing style. Pell talks of her own romance at the age of 70 with an 80-year old man, as well as other "old" couples from all over the country that she interviewed. Each chapter deals with a different subject, such as how they met, obstacles, health issues, and she includes the stories of several of the couples she interviewed in each chapter. For an investigative reporter, however, I found her writing show more style to be amateurish. show less

I received this book in a LibraryThing giveaway.

I fell in love and married for the first (and hopefully) only time when I was in my forties. I had pretty much given up on meeting someone, so it was a big surprise to me when I found my husband-to-be, pretty much right under my nose. For a long time I had to endure the "So when will you get married" question from friends and relatives and acquaintances (near and not-so-near), so I know something about finding love after everyone else has come show more to believe I was going to be single forever.

I guess this explains, in part, why I was attracted to this book (via its description). Most of the stories in this book are about people who were married or who had partners who died or whom they divorced. That did not make the book any less interesting or pertinent to my situation. In fact, I thought that many of the stories were quite relevant, and the people in them strike me as courageous with their open hearts.

I found it a very optimistic book; I enjoyed the personal stories very much. I also enjoyed the author's discussion of her own courtship with her husband Sam.

I appreciated that the author did not surgarcoat love late in life. There can be some challenges, and not everyone is up to owning them. But even in those stories, I felt that the people in the stories, particularly the women, learned something about themselves and found ways to be authentic in their choices. I think the subtitle "the wisdom of unexpected romance" to be quite appropriate. show less

Part memoir, part a collection of interviews, and a little bit of self-help/advice, this book is about what it's like to love and be in love when you are "old" - here, defined as both partners being age 60 or above. Author Eve Pell chooses this word to describe them because "Senior sounds tepid; older sounds like a way to soften old; elderly sounds fragile. Old is just a fact of life - if we are lucky to live long enough, it's what we become" (page xix).

I'm therefore not old yet, and my show more husband and I don't quite fit the profile of the 15 couples in the book, because I was just 49 and he was 64 when we married. However, like a number of the couples, we reconnected after originally meeting 27 years before, and after marrying (and divorcing) other people. So I felt I could relate to this book, even though I wasn't quite "old" enough.

Pell introduces her "cast of characters" at the beginning of the book with brief paragraph profiles of the couples, which include herself and her spouse, and two gay couples, one male, one female. After a short introduction, there are nine chapters that address such topics as how the couples met, how they knew the relationship was serious, deciding what to do about it, obstacles they encountered, and ways they make the relationship work. There are also a couple of sensitive chapters addressing sex and death. Two other chapters ask the interviewees about the differences in love now compared to when they were young, and about what they'd learned from their experiences.

Each chapter begins with the author's experiences with her husband Sam, who she met when she was 67 and he 77, marrying four years later. Sadly, he died a little over three years after that. In her epilogue, Pell describes what happened afterward.

This book grew out of a piece Pell wrote for the New York Times’ “Modern Love” column in January 2013. Not surprisingly, there was a huge response to the column, and that led to the interviews in the book.

The segments of each interview (and Pell's story) in each chapter are easy to find, as they have headings with the couple's names and subheadings summarizing each segment in a few words or a phrase. This made it easy for me to follow the stories of the couples (introduced at the beginning of the book) with which I felt the most in common.

This book is reaffirming for those of us in a relationship begun when (at least one of the couple was) "old," as well as encouraging for those contemplating seeking or entering such a relationship later in life.

© Amanda Pape - 2015

[This hardbound edition was sent to me in exchange for an unbiased review by the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. It will be donated to my public or university library. This review also appears on Bookin' It.] show less

Love, Again is the memoir of Eve Pell and her late-in-life marriage. She also interviews a variety of other couples who found love in their last decades, some widowed, some divorced, gay or straight. Issues of merging households, dealing with adult children, health problems, and honoring the memory of deceased spouses, are handled in a poignant and sometimes funny way. The book was thought-provoking and inspiring.