At the 2017 National Book Awards, Annie Proulx was given the medal for distinguished contribution to American letters. She - of Brokeback Mountain and The Shipping News fame, with her Pulitzer, her National Book Award, and many other honors - she said something like, “We live in a Kafkaesque time … but we keep on trying, because there’s nothing else to do.” She referenced our broken world and its litany of ills and she spoke of the hope to be found in books.
She also gave those of us toiling past the middle a gift, a string of pearls from one of the highest literary perches for those of us bent over our pages, damn the annual torpedoes:
“I didn’t start writing until I was 58,” she said. “So if you’ve been thinking about it and putting it off, well …”
Can we have a chorus of huzzahs! An angel of letters has spoken directly to us, the army of aging artists laboring in a cult of youth, a fresh-faced 30 Under 30 hellscape. No disrespect to all you youngsters - I read you and I approve. I remain entirely impressed, for instance, that Téa Obreht wrote the magnificent novel, The Tiger’s Wife, when she was barely into her 20’s. There is no lack of stunning work from people the age of my children. But, we hear about them all the time. The young are deified and commodified here - they don’t need another angel urging them on.
We, the over-fifty crowd, do.
I do.
Somewhere, I have a list of writers who made their mark later in life. I’ve worried it, like a talisman, when the panic rises. When the youth-besotted bacchanal around me becomes shrill and exclusive. Aging out of a creative life is a mad idea, when you look at history, but it is an idea with a lot of currency and some very effective marketing. The list calms me.
I can’t find the list, but when I do, Annie Proulx goes on it.
I remember that Carol Shields, one of Canada’s preeminent writers, was in her forties and had four children when she started writing. Olive Ann Burns published Cold Sassy Tree, her first and only complete novel, when she was 59. Harriet Doerr published Stones for Ibarra when she was 74, and won the National Book Award for her troubles.
There are more. I don’t remember where I put the list (damn midlife memory!), but I remember that there were more.
So, to all of you - not just the early, the middle, or the late - all of you, every last one of you lovely scribblers out there:
There is time. It’s not too late, never too late.
Exercise that creative muscle, write your story, write it all down. Chase those words, wherever they lead.
Let’s start building that 50 Over 50 list. Annie won a lifetime achievement award and she didn’t publish until she was 58. Think about that.
Now I’m going to look for that list. And then I’m going to write.
As Robert Frost said,
“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”
Things to share:
Annie Ernaux won the Nobel Prize and I’m late to the party again. The Years has been top of my list for a long time - so many books!
Eva Wiseman wrote a perfect thing about how to show up for those in crisis. For anyone asking, or being asked, “Is there anything I can do?” -
“You can alter dawn. That would be good.”
It’s the time of year when one’s thoughts turn to gifting (or at least listing) and I know just the thing. Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series has something for everyone. Compact, beautifully designed, and wonderfully written (in the case of Summer Brennan’s High Heel, the only one I’ve read so far), they make a perfect little gift. I’m giving several this Christmas (and I want about a dozen). This, of course, is assuming I do anything about the list. Typically, October is all good intention and December is late blind panic.
I’m clinging to this sappy little sentiment today. Feeling a little dizzy and doomy, hoping the good work is happening somewhere.🤞
Happy October!
Lisa
Just got my hands on a copy of The Years. The opening pages are amazing... what a treat!
Omg, the 50 over 50 list is brilliant. And one I aspire to be on! I’ve always bristled at the x under x lists....nothing quite like it to make you feel unworthy. And I had no idea that Proloux was that age when she began writing. This gives me hope!
My son began University this fall. He called me one day and told me that he has just discovered his fave new writer: Alice Munro. Had I heard do her?
Hells yes. And she’s no youngin now at 91. I nominate her for the list : )