Published in 2020
304 pages
Dr. Ruth O. Saxton is a Professor Emerita of English at Mills College in Oakland, CA. Over the course of her forty-two-year career, she has studied, taught, and published works on fiction by women for decades, focusing on how narratives limit or expand what we imagine to be possible. Dr. Saxton served as the college’s first Dean of Letters, cofounded the Women’s Studies program, and founded the Rhetoric and Composition program. Her scholarly works include The Girl, Constructions of the Girl in Contemporary Fiction by Women; Approaches to Teaching Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (with Eileen Barrett); and Woolf and Lessing: Breaking the Mold (with Jean Tobin). She currently resides in Oakland, CA.
What is this book about?
This is a book that champions older women’s stories and challenges the limiting outcomes we seem to hold for them. The Book of Old Ladies introduces readers to thirty stories featuring fictional “women of a certain age” who increasingly become their truest selves. Their stories will entertain and provide insight into the stories we tell ourselves about the limits and opportunities of aging. A celebration of women who push back against the limiting stereotypes regarding older women’s possibility, The Book of Old Ladies is a book lover’s guide to approaching old age and dealing with its losses while still embracing beauty, creativity, connection, and wonder.
