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Marie Sharp, a child of the 1960s, is entering her own 60s. Behind her is a life full of experiences: not just marriage, family, divorce, and work but also experimenting with drugs and having unprotected sex. In other words, Marie has lived. She has had adventures. She has been known to be reckless and irresponsible, at least by today’s standards. Now she’s old and wants to feel that way.
In No! I Don’t Want to Join a Book Club, Marie swears off all kinds of things that her friends and contemporaries are embracing: book clubs, yes, but also learning new things like foreign languages and joining gyms. Activities that challenge the mind and body, activities that others like to brag about—these are not for Marie. Writing in the diary that forms the narrative of this novel, she exults in what lies ahead: time to take it easy, refrain from doing what anyone else tells her, relish the diminishing possibilities. Her friends may see her as a contrarian—especially the loyal Penny, who braves the dating scene and struggles with her own self-image crises—but Marie has always been her own person. However, she shocks everyone when she declares she is swearing off sexual and romantic relationships—in short, she is swearing off men. Forever. She doesn’t intend this declaration to be a public one, but of course word gets out.
Marie wants her life to be simple and manageable. She can handle her own hypochondria. She can handle redecorating her bedroom. She can even handle—nay, embrace!—grandmotherhood (that is, when she isn’t sick with worry over the baby’s falling prey to kidnappers or too-small socks). A man would not only confuse matters; he also wouldn’t fit in her new, smaller bed. But amid the simple pleasures Marie craves are real complications she cannot ignore. Some of those dearest to her may not be around to grow old along with her. She must realize that no matter what life one chooses, embraces, or is given, it has only one possible ending.
Still, maybe there are more possibilities ahead for her than she allows herself to dream—or to admit to her diary. Perhaps, even for Marie, this new stage in life won’t turn out quite according to her simple plan.
(Introduction provided by the publisher)
An only child of two arty parents, (Professor Janey Ironside and Christopher Ironside) I attended my great aunts’ dame school as a day girl aged three and stayed until I was sixteen. I am very glad I never went to university. I started off my working life as a temporary secretary to Dame Shirley Williams at the Fabian Society and then worked at Vogue, followed by the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail (as a rock columnist), Woman magazine (as an agony aunt), then the Sunday Mirror, Today and the Scottish Daily Post. I then worked as a weekly agony aunt for the Independent for twenty years. I now have a regular agony column with the Oldie magazine and also the Idler. I’ve also written around twenty books, enough books to merit the title of “author” (!) so if you’d like to buy any on-line, feel free. You’ll find details about all of them on the books page.
You can find out all about my childhood by reading Janey and Me.
Where am I at the moment? Single, 80, with one son, who, having played in the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (www.ukuleleorchestra.com) for over thirty years, now makes custom-made ukuleles and composes music (willgrovewhite.com). I’m very, very lucky, in that I have two wonderful grandchildren and I’m still working. Like most people of my age, I don’t fear death, but fear getting mad, incapable and gaga.
The years after being 60 (until, perhaps 80 when the usual physical horrors took hold) have, no question, been the happiest years of my life. That’s why I wrote No! I Don’t Want to Join a Bookclub, a fictional diary of being sixty and a grannie, then a couple of others in the same series and finally, the latest, No Thanks! I’m Quite Happy Standing!
In the summer of 2009 I put myself on stage at the Edinburgh Festival in my show called Growing Old Disgracefully. I performed it around the country for the next ten years.
I have suffered from depression and anxiety all through my life and am amazed that I’ve got to this great age.
(Biography provided by the author)
