Late-Life Love

“Tender, unsparing, poignant. . . . [A] love story that braids together intimate self-revelation with a rich meditation on the literature of aging.”¯ Stephen Greenblatt

On Susan Gubar’s seventieth birthday, she receives a beautiful ring from her husband, a gift that startles her into an appreciation of their luck. As she contemplates their sustaining relationship, Susan considers how older lovers differ from their youthful counterparts¯and from ageist stereotypes.

When her husband encounters age-related disabilities, Susan procrastinates over moving from their burdensome house in the country to a more manageable town apartment by searching out literature on the longevity of desire by authors from Ovid and Shakespeare to Toni Morrison and Marilynne Robinson. During subsequent months of care-giving, her own ongoing cancer treatments, and apartment-hunting, Susan studies the obstacles many older couples overcome and marvels at the passion that buoys her own relationship. A memoir proving that love and desire have no expiration date, Late-Life Love is a resounding retort to negative valuations of old age and a celebration of second chances.

“"With her characteristic candor, wide-ranging intelligence, and sympathetic humor Susan Gubar has given us another astonishing memoir, of what she calls 'late-life love' and its vicissitudes. So vividly does Susan Gubar write, so richly, visually, and even aurally does her prose spring to life, it's as if we are taken by the hand by the memoirist and led through the adventures of the life she and her beloved husband live in the shadow of illness and aging."”

"[A] winning, intelligent mix of candid personal history and reflections on relevant fiction, poetry and movies... [An] impressive, often heartening addition to the literature of aging." -- Wall Street Journal
"Gubar turns her fertile, critical mind and vast bibliographic knowledge to 'the physical and psychological, the sexual and familial challenges of later-life love.'" -- Boston Globe
"A unique blend of memoir and literary commentary, with Gubar at the helm as an accomplished, bravely honest, and mesmerizing guide...Gubar seamlessly weaves in lengthy discussions of a wide-range of literature...Reading these analyses is like having a season ticket to a series of fascinating literary discussions." -- BookPage
"Gubar’s wise, honest, and frequently humorous work reveals that even amid the inevitable struggles of old age, personal and conjugal reinvention is not only quite possible, but also quite possibly lovely—both in literature and in life." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Gubar confronts life's most personal circumstances and her innermost fears and triumphs with wit, joy, sensitivity, and abundant honesty." -- Booklist
"A deeply personal and bittersweet paean to love 'immune to the vicissitude of time.'...[A] book filled with wit, candor, and poignancy." -- Kirkus
"'Age in love loves not to have years told,' Shakespeare wrote, explaining the elaborate game of lies that enabled him to pretend that he was still young. But what if one loves and stops pretending? Susan Gubar’s Late-Life Love is a tender, unsparing, poignant answer to this question, a love story that braids together intimate self-revelation with a rich meditation on the literature of aging." -- Stephen Greenblatt
"With her characteristic candor, wide-ranging intelligence, and sympathetic humor Susan Gubar has given us another astonishing memoir, of what she calls ‘late-life love’ and its vicissitudes. So vividly does Susan Gubar write, so richly, visually, and even aurally does her prose spring to life, it’s as if we are taken by the hand by the memoirist and led through the adventures of the life she and her beloved husband live in the shadow of illness and aging." -- Joyce Carol Oates
"In the midst of her own life-threatening illness, her husband’s immobilizing injury, and an impending household downsizing, Susan Gubar decided to write this mesmerizing meditation on late-life love. The resulting volume provides an insightful, wry, and honest look at the physical and emotional aspects of late-life love, intertwining personal memoir with literature, philosophy, and popular culture. Gubar’s brilliantly composed book offers a delightful primer for all readers interested in this most under-examined topic." -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Susan Gubar is an acclaimed memoirist and literary critic. Together with Sandra M. Gilbert, she was awarded the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle. A Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Indiana University, she lives in Bloomington.

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