GOLDEN YEARS

An unconventional reality television series contestant tells his side of the ordeal.

Retired restaurateur Turner was 72 when the inaugural episodes of ABC’s Golden Bachelor aired in 2023. Widowed from his longtime wife, who had been his teenage sweetheart, he ultimately applied for the show’s senior spinoff version after realizing how much he truly needed “to move on after forty-three years of a wonderful marriage.” In amiable, conversational prose, the author retraces his bucolic early years growing up in the rural Midwest with hardworking parents. He met his late wife, Toni, in high school, and their youthful whirlwind romance resulted in a solid marriage and two daughters, despite early financial challenges that caused him to forgo law school and embrace restaurant management. His televised search for a wife and soulmate began in the bachelor mansion in Los Angeles, where he was greeted by 22 zesty, eligible women with whom he shared weeks of melodramatic confessions, adventurous compatibility test dates, romantic hometown visits, and a “gut-wrenching” succession of rose ceremonies (often recorded in long overnight sessions). “Instead of Mr. Right, I felt like the villain, or the executioner releasing the rope on a guillotine,” he admits. Turner details all the connections, mishaps, and dating dilemmas with a smoothly written mixture of honesty and emotional maturity. From his first kiss with smitten contestant Theresa Nist, to another woman’s crushingly unexpected departure, to a marriage proposal in Costa Rica, Turner writes frankly about his regrets from the show, his newly uncovered bone marrow cancer, and, to fans’ delight, the intricacies and delicacies of the show’s “illusions of grandeur.” He also includes the shockingly sharp edges of his new marriage to Theresa, which ended in divorce after only three months. Despite that, his performance was enough to secure future installations of the spinoff, but for now, Turner writes that his focus will remain on his health and on being a proud grandfather and single father.

An honest, if bittersweet, reality TV confessional.