Given its title, it might be tempting for readers under Social Security age to dismiss Old Man Country: My Search for Meaning Among the Elders. That would be a mistake. Anyone who hopes to experience the blessings of longevity while also confronting its burdens will benefit from accompanying gerontologist Thomas R. Cole on his visits to a dozen wise men with hard-earned, firsthand knowledge of exactly what that means.
Cole (The Journey of Life) serves as director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at University of Texas Health Science Center. Between 2011 and 2017, he conducted a series of interviews with men in the "Fourth Age," the stage of life beginning roughly at age 80, and one that's been described as "a Black Hole--a vague, frightening, and shadowy cultural space that evokes denial when it doesn't provoke fear." In approaching his encounters with inhabitants of that territory, Cole, who's now 70, sought to "reclaim and enhance the humanity" of these men, most of whom, he clarifies, are white, Protestant, heterosexual and financially comfortable.
Cognizant of his approaching encounter with the Fourth Age, Cole generously shares pieces of his own story, including his painful divorce, illnesses and injuries, as he explains how his conversations with this group of eminent but deeply human men supplied him with "things to emulate and things to avoid, inspiring examples and cautionary tales." Readers who haven't spent a lifetime in the study of aging, as he has, should come away from these candid conversations with equally valuable lessons. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer