The perimenopause and menopause hit every woman differently, of course. But, as I sit here adding and discarding natural fibre layers, wondering where I put my notes/ glasses/libido/clarity of thought/patience, I’ll venture to suggest that there are certain themes that unite us all. And that’s only the ones we can mention in print…
Books have always been my refuge in times of mental strife (for the physical, I’m afraid we’ll just have to keep slapping on the patches, rubbing in the gels and demanding our GPs tweak the dosages whenever the effects wear off). I probably should have been doing exercise or cryptic crosswords instead of reading – then I wouldn’t be in half the osteoporotic, brain-foggy trouble I’m in now. All hindsight’s 20-20, y’know? But! While I can still remember and type without my fingers collapsing into dust, let me share some of the books that have been helping me through the multitudinous moods caused by hormonal flight.
Before 45,Ibarely had any emotions whatsoever. Now? I’m a tiny vessel trying to contain a roiling sea. Mostly of rage. As an aid to its management, I recommend Katy Brent’s self-explanatory How To Kill Men And Get Away With It – a cathartic novel, I hasten to point out, not a how-to guide.
Follow that up with CJ Skuse’s Sweetpea series, whose serial-killing (anti-?) heroine proves that it really is the quiet ones you need to watch. With these in your armoury, you should be able to face the world with relative equanimity once more, and your loved ones–despite all their questions and conversations and breathing – will be safe to go about their business unmaimed.
It’s always important in tumultuous times to keep a book or two handy that will remind you of happier ones. Keep your friends close, as they say, but your comfort reads closer – especially from the ages of 45-55. I rely on childhood reads such as Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce (a filigree work that only becomes more beautiful on rereading) and The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken’s Dickensian romp through a slightly alternative history of England. See also Maeve Binchy (Light A Penny Candle and Echoes are my go-tos for their fearless concentration on the minutiae of female lives from childhood onwards) and DE Stevenson’s endlessly charming Miss Buncle’s Book.
If you need a good cry, I’d recommend Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers.
If you need a good laugh? Florence King’s Confessions Of A Failed Southern Lady. If the cloak of invisibility is threatening to choke you and you want to feel seen and understood, then anything by Elizabeth Strout, Dorothy Whipple, Elizabeth Taylor (start with Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont, especially if you also need that good cry we were talking about), or Penelopes Fitzgerald or Mortimer are your friends. Or Jane Austen, always, of course.
Speaking of the classics: George Eliot’s Middlemarch is, as I believe not even the young people are saying these days, da bomb. If you can’t face the whole thing, here’s Eliot’s summation of her imperfect heroine’s life: ‘But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.’ For the days when you just need reminding that you matter – more than you’ll ever know.
Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives (Square Peg) by Lucy Mangan is out now
