Out Of Time

From the hugely respected journalist Miranda Sawyer, a very modern look at the mid-life crisis - delving into the truth, and lies, of the experience and how to survive it, with thoughtfulness, insight and humour. 'The mid-life crisis. We know the symptoms. We laugh about them. But should we? In a society obsessed with youth - with its culture, its looks, its values, its sexual habits - it is hard to admit that you're middle-aged and uneasy about it. Scared, even. My mid-life crisis began when I was 44, as a sort of queasiness. I felt uncomfortable, as though I had the wrong coat on: too hot, too heavy. I felt, too, as though I was missing something. Not missing out. But missing: mourning the loss of something - a person? a place? - that was once there, but had gone, slipped through my fingers. Days would whizz past - weeks, months - and yet it seemed only yesterday that I was 29. Perhaps, at this point, I should have upped and left the family for a Portuguese waiter I met on holiday with the girls. But I didn't want to leave my husband. I like my husband. And my kids. What I wanted, of course, was time. Because the one thing a mid-life crisis highlights is the fact that your end-life crisis is not far away. In fact, it's rushing at me at breakneck speed, knocking me down with its force.'
Review:
Praise for 'Park and Ride': 'A great success ... Such annihilation has been performed before. John Osborne did it. Sid Vicious was there. But this is prime stuff' Independent On Sunday 'Like Victoria Wood she has a talent for illuminating the absurdities of how ordinary people live their ordinary lives' Observer 'Miranda Sawyer's suburban memoir 'Park and Ride' was as excellent as we expect' Julie Burchill, Guardian (Books of the Year)