In How to Age Disgracefully, Clare Pooley (The Authenticity Project; Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting) delivers another offbeat comedy--with a hopeful message--that brings together a cast of quirky, raucous British pensioners whose lively antics will charm readers.
The novel is set at a London-area community center in need of revitalization--literally and figuratively. Lydia, a 53-year-old wife, mother, and once in-demand food stylist who is suffering a midlife crisis, has been hired to run the facility's new Senior Citizens' Social Club, but a ceiling collapse kills one of its members during their very first meeting. In addition to stepping up to establish the club, Lydia and the group also take on Maggie Thatcher, the "ugly-looking" dog who belonged to the deceased woman.
The small club is comprised of septuagenarians who are vastly different in background and temperament but who are all in search of adventure. The group includes a former businesswoman turned loner with secrets; an actor with kleptomaniacal tendencies who's tired of "playing grumpy old men" and dead bodies; a retired paparazzo; a hardcore knitting addict; and a woman who is "pushy" in every sense of the word, including how she navigates with her walker. Lydia learns that managing the health and safety of this less-than-sedate group on her cash-strapped budget is no easy task. And when the town threatens to bulldoze their hangout, the group rebels in hilarious ways, complete with help from kids at the nursery school housed in the same facility.
Readers are in for great fun as they travel along with Pooley's assembly of madcap characters who refuse to play by the rules--or to let their age limit them. -- Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines