Our Future Selves: Love, Life, Sex, and Aging

This is a book for women and men about what it means to be old. Investigative journalist and author Merrily Weisbord takes us on her journey through the literature, science and everyday experience of aging, conducting personal discussions with sociologist Betty Friedan, biochemist Linus Pauling, Gray Panther Maggie Kuhn, Norman Cousins, Joan and Erik Erickson, M.F.K. Fisher, her own father, and Uncle Joe, Aunt Sue and their friends at the Seminole Trailer Park in Florida. Examining research on the cutting edge of the sciences and humanities, Weisbord asks the questions that worry her about growing older. What happens to sex? What seems beautiful when one is older? How does one’s identity change? What happens to one’s memory? What values become important? For the many of us thinking about what lies ahead after middle age, Our Future Selves is a surprising journey into taboo territory.