To Live in the Center of the Moment

In To Live in the Center of the Moment, Barbara Frey Waxman examines the emergence of the evocative literature of aging and demonstrates how these autobiographies challenge negative cultural associations of old age. Waxman has selected narratives that focus not on the broad sweep of a person's life but on the period when aging becomes central to the subject's definition of self. The author shows how assessing these literary autobiographies has changed her perceptions and helped her come to terms with impending old age.