Alive, Alive Oh!

November 30, 2015
Almost 10 years after the publication of Athill’s memoir Somewhere Towards the End, she bestows upon readers another gift of her elegant glimpses back at many of her life’s most memorable moments. In beguiling, evocative prose, she details her nostalgia for growing up on her grandmother’s farm; her harrowing, ambivalent feelings around unexpectedly becoming pregnant in her 40s and living through a miscarriage; and her decision to move into a retirement home, where she discovers that “nothing is more valuable than being free to do whatever you are capable of doing.” After her miscarriage, she’s relieved that she won’t have to tell her mother about the pregnancy, and also that she is alive—she realizes that she loved being alive so much that “not having died was much more important to me by far than losing the child.” Looking back on her life, Athill declares that she is happy, sharing the two valuable lessons she’s learned: steer clear of romanticism, and abhor possessiveness. Athill has a charming and captivating way with a story, and a graceful, plainspoken manner of revealing the humor, gravity, and momentary beauty of a life fully lived.

November 1, 2015
Approaching her 98th birthday, the astonishingly vital and fiercely intelligent Athill adds a charming addendum to her previous memoir on aging, Somewhere Towards the End (2009). Following an introduction in which she muses about the pleasures of thinking about past events, people, and places, the author offers 11 essays filled with candid memories and reflections. The first is a fond recollection from the 1920s and 1930s of the garden at Ditchingham Hall (the kitchen garden was "a wonderfully thought-out and maintained fabrication of beauty"), her grandparents' country home in Norfolk, and the second is a look back at the 1940s and 1950s and the pleasures of life in postwar England. What follows are a variety of vivid accounts, the most deeply personal of which tells of her pregnancy in her early 40s, her decision to bear the child, and then the miscarriage that nearly killed her. For readers of a certain age, her decision to give up her independence, move into a home for the elderly, and discover unexpected pleasures there will especially resonate. Whether she is writing about clothes, books, possessions, or relationships, Athill seems always to be completely honest and without unnecessary sentiment. Death does not alarm her--she approves of the sensible, practical way that it is dealt with in her retirement home--and as an atheist, she finds no comfort in the idea of an afterlife. However, as she admitted in her previous memoir on aging, the actual process of dying causes some anxiety. In her final essay here, she allows that one cannot expect an easy dying, but one can still hope for it. Readers can hope that more crisp and thoughtful essays on life, old age, and death will be forthcoming from a centenarian Athill.

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December 15, 2015
Ninety-seven-year-old Athill is not your typical assisted-living resident. She admits to slowing down and to seeking her new home so as not to burden friends, but a quick mind and vivid recall lie beneath that deceptive surface. Athill, the prize winning author of Somewhere towards the End (2008), plucks memories from her past, including those of her grandparents' lavish garden in the 1920s, the relief of VE day, the colonial divide in Trinidad, the loss of a pregnancy, and her lifelong affair with a married man. She also insightfully portrays her fellow residents. Athill writes beautifully, and her descriptions are precise and moving. As an avowed independent thinker, she doesn't shy away from politics or bucking society standards and makes no apologies for her choices. Instead, she celebrates being alive and vital well into her nineties. It's a slim book and far from a comprehensive look at the author's varied life. Rather, it offers an intriguing glimpse into mid-twentieth-century British intelligentsia and a reminder that the oldest of us have lots of stories to tell.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)