NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, middle-aged women are having a moment. Isabella Rossellini was recently reinstated as the face of Láncomé after being fired by the French cosmetics house in 1996 for, she says, being too old (she was a haggard crone of 43). At this year's Academy Awards, a majority of the best actress nominees were over 40 and the winner, Frances McDormand, is 60. This marked a great leap forward for Hollywood, which has traditionally cast women older than 38 in five roles: crazy mother-in-law, cameo librarian, Shirley MacLaine, lady with a dog at the crime scene or frumpy yet endearing confidante of the hero, a guy who was two years above said actress at college. You could call this the Harrison Ford Problem. Ageism may well be the last taboo, but keeping it in place is not just male prejudice but the female's secret dread of losing her youth. Rossellini says that Láncomé told her women dream of looking young. How does it feel to have your sexual currency depreciate that abruptly - and what stock, if any, can replace it? There has been remarkably little good writing about this thorny topic but here, with excellent timing, comes Pamela Druckerman's pitch-perfect and brutally frank "There Are No Grown-Ups." In her 2012 memoir, "Bringing up Bébé," Druckerman created a surprise best seller by observing the way the French manage to raise delightful, polite kids who eat everything on their plates while eagerly debating the merits of Jean-Paul Sartre. It provided the perfect escapist reading for American parents who tiptoe round their own young like a terrified concierge on a short-term contract. In "There Are No Grown-Ups," the American-born author is still living in Paris with her British husband and three children, but lately she has noticed something subtly and disturbingly different about the way she is treated in restaurants. Around her 40 th birthday, there is "a collective code switch" as waiters start calling her "madame" instead of "mademoiselle." Logically, Druckerman knows she is entering middle age - she observes it in the lines on the faces of her peers - but "I just didn't expect 'madame' to happen to me, or at least not without my consent." Shocked, she realizes she has been counting on her own preternaturally youthful appearance to not only endure, but to gain an advantage. "In my 40s, I expect to finally reap the average-looking girl's revenge. I've entered the stage of life where you don't need to be beautiful; simply by being well-preserved and not obese, I would now pass for pretty." Many women calculate in this competitive way; most are too tactful to say so. Not Druckerman. She has a reckless candor that can make you laugh and gasp at the same time. Men, she says, appraise her in the street now only if she is in full hair and makeup, and the message in their gaze is, "I would sleep with her, but only if doing so required no effort whatsoever." Ouch. Raised in a "sunny, non-introspective home," Druckerman claims she has failed to get the point of any decade until it's over. Entering her 40s, she is determined to drill down into the hidden meaning of things. What follows is part memoir, part social comedy, but also a poignant meditation on what it means to suddenly be promoted to the ranks of the grown-ups. As a teenager, Pamela adored "The Official Preppy Handbook" for its insights into the remote tribe of East Coast WASPs. Something of that satirical, anthropological approach informs her own work. The book is peppered with jokey lists that try to nail both the indignities and the advantages of midlife. Some contain a bitter kernel of truth. ("I like the idea that you have lost and gained the same 10 pounds so many times you now regard it as an old friend.") But there are too many one-liners and insufficient quality control. "You know you're in your 40 s when... you know that not all old people are wise" would barely make a Hallmark card. There is a risk in mixing cutesy and philosophical: You win some, you lose some. Elsewhere, quick switches in tone work to memorable effect. For his 40 th birthday, Druckerman's husband requests a threesome with Pamela and another woman. She agrees, mainly to prove she is not going gently into that good nightdress, but also because her journalist self cannot resist a deadline (the assignation needs to take place within six weeks). The pressure is really on when Druckerman agrees to write an article about the experience for a New York magazine but still can't find a person to make up the menage â trois. The erotic errand becomes another item on her busy mom's to-do list. Eventually an acceptable candidate ("I like her perfect spelling") presents herself. The actual deed is reported with such lightly amused aplomb that what could come over as sordid seems like a harmless diversion. In the very next chapter, Druckerman develops a chronic backache, which turns out to be the blood cancer non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. "For the first time, we've entered a realm where words can't go," she says. Not so. Even in the midst of grueling treatment, she's alert enough to appreciate how illness offers "a crash course in other minds." She is mostly skin and bones when she records coolly that "certain woman will be jealous of how skinny you are, no matter what's causing it." As Nora Ephron said, "Everything is copy." For those of us who regard "I Feel Bad About My Neck" as a bible for the midlife woman, Ephron is simply irreplaceable, but Druckerman is the heir to her impish, unembarrassable spirit and adorable storytelling. "There Are No Grown-Ups" loses its way at times, but there is so much to enjoy, especially for those who need a little help feeling "bien dans son age," or wearing their age comfortably. Let's hope it marks a bold new chapter for older women in society - the forgotten and the madam'ed. Oh, and one final point for Pamela Druckerman. You think your 40 s are a challenge? Wait till menopause, honey. How does it feel to have your sexual currency depreciate so fast - and what stock, if any, can replace it? ALLISON PEARSON is the author of "I Don't Know How She Does It." Her new novel is "How Hard Can It Be?"

Essayist and author (Bringing Up Bébé) Druckerman continues to examine her life as an American expat living in Paris with her three children and British husband. This time out, she takes on middle age. French waiters no longer refer to her as "mademoiselle"; now it's "madame." She doesn't get interested looks from strangers anymore. She discusses this with friends male and female, French and otherwise, interspersing the observations with somewhat humorous musings on a comfortable life in Paris, some family history, stories of negotiating social situations in a foreign country, and knowledgeable tips. Chapters cover "How To Be an Expert," "How To Have a Midlife Crisis," "How To Make Friends," and "How To Plan a Ménage à Trois," among other topics. Each section opens with a bullet-list of tips for 40s living. Style suggestions are generic; other midlife hacks are not very helpful for the average fortysomething, but some are funny. Her husband's comments are hilarious, and her thoroughly French children are amusants. The author's bout with a serious illness is awkwardly dropped in, then abandoned. VERDICT Amusing in parts, rambling in others, this loose-knit guide is for fans of the author and those who want to experience the expat life vicariously. [See Prepub Alert, 11/27/17.]-Liz French, Library Journal © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

She's not sure how they knew, but after she turned 40, waiters started calling Druckerman (Bringing Up Bébé, 2012) madame. No longer able to pass as mademoiselle kicks off a midlife rumination on the generation gap between her and her parents, the nature of wisdom and whether she has any, the 11-shaped wrinkle between her eyebrows, and the way French women age more chic than American women. Along the way, she explores current scholarship on the cultural construct of the midlife crisis and interviews women from many fields before diving into her own genealogy. This is no journalistic tome, though. Druckerman's voice self-deprecating but also keenly observant will remind readers of the late Nora Ephron. Her family members, especially her husband, Simon, appear, but this is largely her story of reconciling what she thought she knew about aging with what she is actually experiencing, from the unique perspective of an American expat living in Paris. Peppered with You know you're in your 40s when lists, this is a delightfully funny, thoughtful, coming-of-middle-age story.--Maguire, Susan Copyright 2018 Booklist

A bestselling American author and journalist living in Paris investigates the "undeniably transitional" decade of the 40s.As she neared the end of her 30s, Druckerman (Bb Day by Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting, 2013, etc.) suddenly noticed how peopleand especially Parisian waitersaddressed her using the matronly "madame" rather than the more youthful "mademoiselle." To understand the "new rules" of maturity, the author began to assess every aspect of her life. The marriage and more stable life Druckerman acquired by her mid-30s brought with them a need to remove the dysfunctional friendships that she collected with ease in her youth. The French-born children she had with her British husband made her feel like the "ruler of a tiny country" always subject to judgment by her opinionated "subjects." Middle age also gave new impetus to last-fling experimentse.g., the mnage--trois she planned for her husband's 40th birthdayand the author offers extended ruminations on wrinkles, arm cellulite, and the fashion faux pas of older women. When a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (for which Druckerman was successfully treated) put her face to face with her mortality, she was unexpectedly overcome with new gratitude for being alive. Research into middle age revealed that the so-called midlife crisis was actually "a cultural construct," but one that nevertheless continued to offer those seeking answerslike the authora narrative for how "life [was] supposed to go." In the end, French culture offered her the most satisfying answer: that aging was a matter of learning how to feel comfortable in one's skin and "live out the best version of [one's] age." Half memoir and half ironic how-to guide, Druckerman's book is not only a humorous meditation on the gains and pains of a time in life "when you become who you are"; it is also a thought-provoking meditation on "what it means to be a grown-up."A trenchant and witty book on maturity and "middle-age shock." Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Druckerman (Bringing Up BéBé) tackles the subject of entering her 40s in this amusing essay collection, with all 25 chapters cleverly entitled "How to" (e.g., "How to Be Jung," "How to Have a Midlife Crisis"). Druckerman, who has lived in Paris for 12 years with her British journalist husband (and their three kids), opens by painting a colorful picture of her Miami childhood, where she was raised by positive-thinking, "incompatible" Jewish parents. She then shifts to life in France, including the chapter "How to Plan a Ménàge a Trois" (originally in Marie Claire) about the threesome she gave her husband when he turned 40. Druckerman claims 40 is when Parisians began calling her madame instead of mademoiselle, and when she realized she could no longer sport a youthful wardrobe (blazers and navy blue are now de rigueur, say French fashion rules). Though Druckerman is diagnosed with and treated for cancer in the course of her story, her tone remains predominantly light ("You know you're in your forties when... you watch The Graduate, [and] you identify with the parents"). Druckerman's vision of aging is far from sugarcoated, and by the witty book's end she's matured into her role as a grown-up, making the 40s seem not so awful after all. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.