THE BIG M

Writers confront their experiences of menopause and its aftermath.

Novelist and memoirist Yuknavitch here collects 13 personal essays, including one of her own, representing women at various stages of life, from different cultures, and with a range of feelings about hot flashes, mood swings, and the fact that, as Pam Houston sardonically notes, “Post-menopause, like it or not, death is the next big thing.” In the lively “She-Dandy,” Darcey Steinke considers menopause in other species, like the killer whale pod led by a postmenopausal female that strikes the author as “otherly, smelly, powerful, ridiculously awake.” Several of the essays make it clear that the story of menopause is inevitably tangled up in the stories of life as a whole. It’s an easy transition for Monica Drake—up to the time when her husband leaves her in a messy divorce, and the symptoms of menopause mix inextricably with feelings of rage and sorrow. Some of the best essays provide a view from the other side of menopause. Julia Alvarez sensitively finds her way by reaching out for “stories to steer by” and looks to older women as “muses to help me get wherever I was going.” Yuknavitch’s concluding essay nests her own wrenching experience of menopause into an extended footnote inside an uplifting meditation about the possibilities of change, in which she tells her readers that “you are not alone, but you are going to have to conjure your own story.” Not so much a map as an invitation to explore fearlessly one’s own unique experience, the book provides a chorus of generally calm, comforting, and often surprisingly humorous voices.

Engagingly personal tales of an underreported stage of life.