** Baumgartner by Paul Auster

Baumgartner opens with a wonderful first chapter featuring an aging philosophy professor, a kitchen disaster, a dangerous staircase and a kind gas meter reader. I thought the story would continue lineraly, but it’s more of an evocation of said professor’s love affair with his dead wife and his episodic adventures in the present. Quite lovely; I would have preferred something a little more finished or polished.

** A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung

A Living Remedy recounts the author’s travails with her aging parents. She lives thousands of miles away, has small children, and her parents have been living paycheck to paycheck, while she herself is well educated and comfortable, but not enough to support them in a way she would like to, especially as a pandemic limits travel. I felt frustrated on her behalf.

* The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly by Margareta Magnusson

Following The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, which I found to be mostly repeating bromides about organization, but still sweet, The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly: Life Wisdom from Someone Who Will (Probably) Die Before You dives deeper into clichés (keep fit, try new things). The best parts of the book come when the author reveals glimpses of her own life, in particular her adventures as an expat’s wife. I wish there would have been more of that!

** Tasha by Brian Morton

Tasha is the author’s mother, who, after a life of service and activism, is losing her mind. Her children try a retirement home, which she cannot abide. They hire in-home aides, who alternatively abandon and berate her. It’s all very sad. The author seems to be repeatedly surprised that there is so little help available for frail seniors. Perhaps he had not been keeping up with the news?

* The Final Case by David Guterson

By the author of the wonderful Snow Falling on Cedars? The Final Case describes the last case that an aging attorney tackles, from the perspective of his son who chauffeurs him around. The case, an appalling string of abuse ending in a child’s death, is described in great detail but at a remove. It seems that the old man’s decline is more interesting to the narrator but if so, why spend so much time on the case? (I was not a fan of other books by Guterson.)

* The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

The Swimmers contains two stories, one of a swimming pool that develops strange cracks and eventually closes, and the other of one of the swimmers whose dementia progresses swiftly once she can no longer exercise. Both stories are well observed and beautifully written, but I kept looking for the story arc and found its absence frutrating.

* Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old by Steven Petrow

If you’ve ever judged an older person for some behavior you don’t approve of,  Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old: A Highly Judgmental, Unapologetically Honest Accounting of All the Things Our Elders Are Doing Wrong will call to you. Each chapter is standalone and describe one behavior, usually from one of the author’s parents, that he does not want to imitate as he gets older. Some are sensible and treated with generosity. For instance, it’s hard to lose one’s independence and give up driving. But many seem unnecessarily biting, patronizing, and even cruel. It made me feel guilty for liking the title.

*** Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont stars a widow who moved to an inexpensive hotel as a sort of senior-living residence where the mostly female residents try to pretend that all is well and that they are not completely abandoned by their families. Mrs  Palfrey unexpectedly meets a young writer and both of them profits from the relationship in ways that the other may not completely understand. It’s a melancholic look at old age (not so old age, actually, by today’s standards!) but the story is delightful.

** The Secret to Superhuman Strength

The Secret to Superhuman Strength is an often hilarious memoir of the author’s experiments with various fitness crazes–alongside deeply felt reflections on her relationships, foibles, and family members. I just could not understand how the pieces about Margaret Fuller and Henry Thoreau fit it, but I just started skipping them.

*** The tunnel by A.B.Yehoshua

The hero of The Tunnel is a retired civil engineer with incipient dementia, who is encouraged by wife to help with a secret project to build a road in the desert.

He may forget everyone’s name, including his own, but he knows about roads, and so he goes off the assess the terrain and discovers Palestinians hiding there, right where the road should be. A tunnel would be the solution. Of course the story is not about the tunnel but about the adventures of a man with unreliable memories and bold ideas. I loved seeing the world from the perspective of someone who cannot quite think like the rest of us, but is not afraid to use it to his advantage.