Synopses & Reviews
Review
"In 1936 or thereabouts, M. F. K. Fisher found in a junk-shop in Zurich a picture of an old woman, Ursula von Ott, born in 1767, painted by the last of her sons, a picture which became a lodestar in Fisher's life and led her after some 40 years of accumulated clippings and notes to a collection of stories 'about aging and ending and living and whatever else the process of human being is about.' Sister Age is that collection. The stories range from remembrances from childhood to a visit to the oldest man she really knew, the father of one of her professors in Dijon. They all lead to her 'Afterword' and her summary that 'Children and old people and the parents in between should be able to live together, in order to learn how to die with grace, together.' All of the tales are told with her usual knack of making something usual and commonplace seem exotic and remarkable." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
In these fifteen remarkable stories, M.F.K. Fisher, one of the most admired writers of our time, embraces the coming of old age. With a saint to guide us, she writes, perhaps we can accept in a loving way "the inevitable visits of a possibly nagging harpy like Sister Age" But in the stories, it is the human strength in the unavoidable encounter with the end of life that Fisher dramatizes so powerfully. Other themes the importance of witnessing death, the marvelous resilience of the old, the passing of vanity are all explored with insight, sympathy and, often, a sly wit."