Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

Elizabeth Buchan

5/6/2007

Rose Lloyd has a good life. She's been married for 25 years to a man she loves and is comfortable with, has a grown son and a grown daughter, and is the book section editor for a large London newspaper where her husband Nathan also works. She discovers she and Nathan have been too comfortable. One Friday evening he tells her he is moving out. He has met another woman who gives him excitement and purpose. First Rose is unbelieving, then shocked, then in despair. To compound her spiraling downward, when she goes to the office the following Monday, she is let go from her job for a younger, fresher editor. She was getting ready to fire her replacement when she learns she is fired instead. Now Rose's ordered, good life is shattered.

For the first few weeks she tries to work her marriage problems out with Nathan. That's when she discovers he thinks she never got over the man she had left when she met him all those years earlier, Hal. He doesn't believe her when she protests. Also, he's discovered he wants more than the comfortable life he had with Rose. The new, younger woman gives him a new purpose.

Now Rose has to rediscover herself and what she wants. She and Nathan remain friends because both of their affection they still have and for their children. As she is recovering, Hal reappears in her life. She is being sought by competitors of her old paper to help with their book review sections. Her mother is ill, so she is kept busy with her mother as well. At 47 Rose Lloyd starts to learn about herself all over again.

I thought that Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman was going to be a British farce along the lines of Bridgit Jones's Diary. I was wrong. Instead it is a thoughtful look into the life of the woman left for a trophy woman. Nathan never seemed like the type who would have an affair and leave his wife. But Rose learns there are things about her husband she had missed or taken for granted. She comes to realize that she was also at fault in their marriage for her blindness. She also learns there is more to Rose Lloyd than she has realized. With the help of her friends and children, she once again begins to discover the woman she is or can be.

Elizabeth Buchan keeps a light, insightful look at Rose's life. The book neither gets maudlin nor too bright and chirpy by the end. Middle age is no easier than being younger - just has a new set of challenges and issues. Rose doesn't have a happily-ever ending in this book of getting Nathan back or snatching back her job from the upstart. But Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman has a satifsying, hopeful end. This novel gives a readable portrait of working through life's problems when you thought everything was solved. It's a satisfying book that is a good read.

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