Twilight years of an American couple

The title contains a bit of a joke given the protagonists are 90 year old Abe Winter and 87 year old Ruth Winter, and the story is set in their twilight years. It is a bit of a love song to a dying type of American, especially the American male, who was hard working, family loving, stoical, largely uncomplaining, sure he is right, Republican. Abe Winter personifies the best of this archetype. He adores his wife, was a successful and hard working provider and bread winner (old fashioned insurance sales man who was a pillar of his society), made a comfortable home and life for his family, is a good father to his children (even if he agreed Ruth did 85% of the childcare), and over all, is a decent steady man, strong principled, forthright, no-nonsense, unwavering from his personal code of ethics. There is some charm in this depicting of a dying breed, who does not know what navel-gazing is and would have no truck with it if they did.

Ruth and Abe met at the University of Washington where Abe studied Business Administration and Ruth, at 18, was studying Liberal Arts. A small town girl from Shelton, Ruth is thrilled with the metropolis of Seattle and finds the city exciting, cultured, sophisticated, all the things she has been longing for. At their first date and introduction, Abe had already upset Ruth by asking her what use Liberal Arts is, and why not study something useful like nursing. Although the first date went badly – for Ruth, that is, who did not take to Abe, and also for Abe perhaps, who was smitten straightaway by Ruth but could not manage to impress her – it is clear they are opposites in personality types as well as positions and politics. At their 70th wedding anniversary celebrated with many friends and family, in her speech, Ruth underlines the poles they occupy:

“It’s not news to anybody here that Abe and I haven’t always seen eye to eye. The Democrat and the Republican. The flaky liberal and the stodgy conservative. The poet and the pragmatist. The wave and the rock” (p341)

Abe gives all the credit for a long and successful marriage to Ruth, while Ruth spells out their mutual reliance or interdependence, and the balance they have achieved, being each other’s ‘counterpoint’, which she says is needed to bring out the best in a person.

The novel follows a simple structure, of flipping back and forth between past and present. In the present, 2023, 2024, we see the increasingly frail Abe suddenly having to care for the previously healthy Ruth when she is unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer and has to have a quick operation to remove a large part of her jaw, 7 teeth, half her tongue, and so on. Followed by aggressive radiotherapy and all the attending pains and complications. These chapters set in the present of the aged couple, are interspersed with chapters set in their life from the time they meet in the University of Washington, right through their lives and marriage, showing them not just to be two pitiably old biddies, but individuals who have lived full lives and have strong personalities. It is basically a context which (re)humanises the elderly.

That said, a big part of the novel is about depicting the challenges of daily life for the elderly, and there are many good passages which bring home how much of a struggle even normal daily activities (driving, attending to the ill, going to the bathroom, etc) can be, for those who are infirm, fragile, increasingly compromised in mobility and dexterity. There are some other passages about not keeping up with the younger generation which are a bit less nuanced and more slapstick, such as Abe saying,

All the news was on Tweeter now and the other one, Tickety-tock, where teenagers Gorilla-Gluing body parts to various objects passed as newsworthy” (p5)

or where Abe becomes irascible with a pharmacist because he has not brought his prescription, is not carrying his mobile phone which he keeps in a drawer unused anyway, and is therefore unable to get his prescription:

I’m no dummy. I have five grandchildren – you think I don’t know all about twerking and PG chat?” (p330)

When asked where his phone is, he tells the pharmacist it is on the wall in his kitchen where it belongs, to the surprise of the pharmacist that Abe still uses a landline. All this is probably for comic effect more than realistic: the pharmacist who must see a lot of elderly people must know many still use landlines and not mobiles. Yes, even in 2023 and 2024.

Abe and Ruth’s marriage has its ups and downs, its tests and stumbles. But overall, they raise 3 out of 4 children to adulthood successfully, have 5 grandchildren, and their 3 adult children into their 40s and 50s remain very close to Abe and Ruth. The novel touchingly details how Ruth and Abe both feel railroaded by the care of their children, who deem them increasingly incapable in many ways – perhaps rightly – but to their indignation. Abe zones out occasionally and is becoming forgetful, while Ruth still has her mental faculties perfect, but both are physically infirm and perhaps slower than their children would wish, to acknowledge their new limitations. It is sobering to Ruth and Abe how their children could call the shots and make life decisions for them, when they are so used to being the care givers and decision makers. It is also interesting how Abe and Ruth want to save a lot of money to give to children and grandchildren after they pass, when they themselves started out with no inheritances and moreover, all their children have occupations and decent lives. The regular handouts of money in their 90th decade, to the younger generations, is almost surprising. The younger generation seem not to offer much financial assistance to their parents. When Ruth is still in hospital and unable to organise Christmas, Anne the eldest purchases all the food necessary and brings it to the farm, 10 or 12 grocery bags worth about 400 dollars. Abe immediately offers to pay for it. She does not accept, but clearly, Abe is accustomed to footing all the bills for his family, even long after his retirement and the ‘children’ being earning adults. In these ways, this novel is a lovely piece of writing that captures a very particular segment of society, its period, its expectations, its ethics.

Oddly, the depiction of Ruth is less satisfying. Abe comes across very strongly, true to type, quite credible. At the end, he turns into a grumpy old man, albeit a sweet one:

He’d earned the right to sit around on his duff, just as he’d earned the right to complain. Everyone was dying. Everything was expensive. Nothing was made in America. Health care was broken. The economy was broken. Democracy was broken. Manners had disappeared. Common decency was at an all-time low. And the Republican Part had lost its way” (p244)

But Ruth, who married at 19 because she was pregnant and gave up her studies and never graduated, who ended up making her life as a mother and housewife/homemaker, is unremarkable for all that the novel tries to make out she is a free spirit and a poet. Abe, we are constantly told, loves her for her curiosity, intelligence, independence. But we see a woman who never re-engages with education although there are many opportunities, who does not seem very curious about anything, who has never earned a cent in her life or held down a job, so is very far from independent. She ardently desires to travel and especially to see Paris – Abe makes this happen for her – and she comes alive there indeed. But it comes across she has had a very stifled life which she has not tried to redress with the many means available to her and an exceptionally supportive husband to boot. She loses her moral compass occasionally, just out of boredom apparently, and tends to blame her husband for her dissatisfactions in life, and he mostly accepts the responsibility or culpability, as he accepts and forgives even her breaches of trust. Ruth is either a rather poorly depicted character, or just not a very admirable one for all her prettiness, vaunted independence and Abe’s adoration.

A very easy reading novel, pleasant to engage with, entirely set in its time and place.

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