AGE

In this brief wry-and-bitters mulling of the nagging, niggling, old-age preoccupations with death and dying, Calisher has reined in her usual frothing diction and dialogue for the even-tempered (but hardly conventional) joint meditation of a witty, much-loving septuagenarian couple. Gemma, 77, is an architect; husband Rupert, 73, is a poet, and they have each decided to add perhaps an "inch of grace" to dying by recording daily accounts of living and thinking in an "almanac"—to be read by the survivor. Old age is scary in minor habit changes—"the sudden cabs, purse fumblings, the sense that one has talked too much. . ." (or not at all). Both have blackouts and blank lapses. Rupert "never dreamed that either of us would begin dying in the mind." The past seeps in—Gemma's first husband, Italian Arturo; two daughters—one doomed and dead, one in Saudi Arabia; Rupert's first wife, Gertrude. And the pair are visited by contemporaries as well—fatuous and successful Sherm ("The grand old countryman of American culture") and dutiful wife Kit (Gemma and Rupert will read later of their double suicide). The visit of forever-onstage Sherm makes them appreciate even more their non-octogenarian neighbor, Mr. Quinn, floating sweetly on hope, and having, to their delight, "an amateur old age." They're called upon to attend Gertrude in her hospice-style dying—a grisly business, but Gertrude's plan to reclaim Rupert, at last, dies with her. The two quarrel fiercely over the need for their almanac: like any "infighting couple. . .two angry sofas shouting True, True across a square of rug." As for old age: "It's like life. A total disease. . .worthy of being spoken of every day." An amusing, acrid and sharp view of the "total disease" of life and death, paced by Calisher's own teasing imagination.