Mature women and lovers therof, add this to your list …

A Good House?

The Good House, by Ann Leary.  A fine and funny and readable portrait of a sixty-something single psychic-descended-from-witches real estate agent in New England.  She vies with corporate brokers, her grown children, her friends and neighbors, new and old loves.  Throughout all this, she describes in detail her love for alcohol.

And no, of course, she tells us–she is not an alcoholic.  Except that she is.  But instead of  alcoholism as grim disaster a la Days of Wine and Roses,  it is part-time craziness that alternates with the keen pleasure of imbibing, all of which is refreshing, so to say, but still adds up to a train-wreck of a life.

Plus, there is Rebecca, the wealthy young married-to-a-rich-guy woman who falls in love with a married psychiatrist; there is Frankie, the town junker who can get anything done; and and there is  nude swimming and sailing and lobster-trapping and nature in a New England the author clearly knows and loves.

It all sounds a bit bathetic and soap opera-y as I write this out, but there is genuine depth here about life beyond sixty.  Check this book out, ladies and gents of a certain age.  I predict you will be amused, and even a bit enlightened.