The New Old Me: My Late-Life Reinvention

Meredith Maran

Mar 2017 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

“A funny, seasoned take on dashed illusions.”—O Magazine 

“I love everything Meredith Maran writes. She is insightful, funny, and human, and the things she writes about matter to me deeply. Her memoir, The New Old Me, is a book I don’t just want to read—I need to read it. So does everyone else who’s getting older and wants to live fully, with immediacy and enjoyment, which is to say, everyone.”—Anne Lamott, author of Hallelujah Anyway

For readers of Anne Lamott, Abigail Thomas, and Ayelet Waldman comes one woman's lusty, kickass, post-divorce memoir of starting over at 60 in youth-obsessed, beauty-obsessed Hollywood.

After the death of her best friend, the loss of her life’s savings, and the collapse of her once-happy marriage, Meredith Maran leaves her San Francisco freelance writer’s life for a 9-to-5 job in Los Angeles. Determined to rebuild not only her savings but also herself while relishing the joys of life in La-La land, Maran writes “a poignant story, a funny story, a moving story, and above all an American story of what it means to be a woman of a certain age in our time” (Christina Baker Kline, number-one New York Times–bestselling author of Orphan Train).

Praise for The New Old Me:

“High time we had a book that celebrates becoming an elder! Meredith Maran writes of the difficulties of loss and change and aging, but makes it clear that getting on can be more interesting, more fun, and a lot more exciting than youth.”—Abigail Thomas, author of the New York Times bestseller What Comes Next and How to Like It
 
“By turns poignant and funny, the book not only shows how one feisty woman coped with a ‘Plan B life’ she didn't want or expect with a little help from her friends. It also celebrates how she transformed uncertainty into a glorious opportunity for continued late-life personal growth. A spirited and moving memoir about how ‘it's never too late to try something new.’”—Kirkus

Ratings and reviews

Sorry Meredith, but get over your ex already. By the title, I thought this was going to be an uplifting book. Not so much. It was more like that Sunday afternoon movie that you keep watching because " it has to get better ". Too bad, because you are a good writer, just that 295 pages about missing your ex was not a good topic.

About the author

Like a lot of women her age, MEREDITH MARAN has a hard time believing she’s a woman of her age. And yet she’s published more than a dozen books, including The New Old Me, Why We Write About Ourselves, Why We Write, My Lie, and A Theory of Small Earthquakes. When she’s not hiking Mount Hollywood, attending readings at indie bookstores, or scouring Los Angeles’ finest thrift shops, she's writing for venues including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, and Salon. The grateful recipient of fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo and a member of the National Book Critics Circle, Meredith lives in a Silver Lake bungalow that’s even older than she is.