In 1972 the feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, then 62, published her book The Coming of Age to “break the conspiracy of silence” surrounding ageing. In it she argued that old age is culturally defined, arriving at different moments in the human life cycle depending on the time and place. “Society,” she wrote, “looks upon old age as a kind of shameful secret that it is unseemly to mention.” As a result, ageing is notably absent from literature, and many find it easier to imagine death: “in the old person that we must become, we refuse to recognise ourselves”.
Almost 60 years later our essential attitude towards ageing has not changed – at least according to the Australian writers Trish Bolton, Annie de Monchaux and Jane Tara. Their novels, all released this year, consider the experience of ageing as women in a cultural context that would prefer it happened out of sight.
