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Aging With Grace, Greg Liberman: Review & Author Guest Post 8.06.09

Aging with Grace by Greg Liberman explores how far one middle-aged, middle class American woman will go to fulfill her desire to be rich and famous before it's too late. Grace, once beautiful and popular, is now a housewife that's dissatisfied and growing older. When she reconnects on a social networking Web site with April, a high school friend who is leading a life full of glamour and celebrities, Grace feels this lifestyle was her destiny, too. Soon Grace is leading a double life of luxury with Victor, a mysterious Hollywood powerhouse, and one of resentment and lies with her husband and two daughters. She soon discovers that her selfishness and fantasy life may have trapped her in a situation she cannot escape from.

Aging with Grace, according to Liberman, was spun from the question: "Have you ever had a friend that you knew was bad for you?" "Grace is the 'toxic' friend that was always popular," says Liberman. "This novel is a look at life from this person's perspective.

What are her motivations, her needs and desires?" - PRESS RELEASE TORONTO - June 29, 2009

FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS...Ever feel the need that you're life is at a stand still and you're wondering why you aren't doing what you always thought you were destined to be or do? Aging With Grace will have you rethinking. Liberman had me glued from page 1 to 156 starting and ending within 3 hours because I just had to know what Grace was going to say or do. Perhaps this is because there are days I feel like I'm on the path of trying to discover why my life is the way that it is and wondering how could I make it more exciting (not about being a mom but wondering how I let the years fly by so fast without doing some of the things I said I'd do)?! I cringed yet loved her "say what's on your mind" attitude without caring what someone thinks (sometimes I think I'm too nice although I wouldn't be so extreme). It was eye-opening in a sense for me, feeling like Grace as the routine housewife/stay at home mom wondering what her life would have been like had things been differently. Like Grace, most of us have that one friend who we feel envious of because of the different lifestyle they lead. I know I do and there are times I want to jump onto the other side to see if the "grass IS greener on the other side". Coming from the perspective of this psychologist/author, Greg Liberman helped me come to terms with some of my own personal issues dealing with certain relationships in my own life. I recommend this book to anyone seeking that desire to change life drastically and recommend they read this first.

AUTHOR GUEST POST...In my new novel, “Aging with Grace,” the heroine is shallow, rude and mean-spirited. She routinely puts people down (occasionally right in front of them, but usually behind their back) and shows little respect for her friends, her husband or her two teenage daughters.

Doesn’t sound like she’s a very nice person, does she? Would you want to be friends with her?

The novel was written with this question in mind. Now of course, Grace also brings other qualities to the table. She was always considered beautiful, even though lately she has become very concerned with holding on to those good looks. As well, despite her poor attitude, she can be quite charming when she wants to be. But being her friend can be very, very difficult if she doesn’t see you as being her equal or better in the social scene.

For myself, fighting for a spot in the social hierarchy suddenly became an issue in high school. Who knew being cool was so important? The social perks all went to certain cliques and depending on where you rated in the system determined what people thought of you, what they said about you, and what parties you were invited to (not to mention what your chances would be with the opposite sex). I think a lot of us find ourselves being attracted to the “cool” kids, i.e. the ones with the right qualities like good looks, bubbly personality, money, etc… It’s also worth noting that this behavior does not end in high school. Although the rules can change (sometimes), the class and clique system can extend into work, sports, clubs, etc… Sometimes being seen with the right people can be very important, maybe even the most important thing (they should teach a class on this stuff).

Let’s look at an example. Say that you are a dork who just started high school (when I say you, I mean me) and you are way down on the social ladder. You don’t dress right, you have a speech impediment and your hair looks funny. But you decide to change all that to try to fit in better. You throw caution to the wind a little bit, including caving in to peer pressure when necessary. Soon your clothes look like they should be on the cover of Vogue, you’ve been going to speech therapy and you’re rocking some sweet hair. Now you are being invited to a couple of parties here and there and you’re starting to hang out with a genuine “cool” kid. Fantastic, right? Well, what if that shiny new friend of yours turns out to be horrible? That’s Grace.

I thought it would be interesting to take one of these cool kids who always had the benefits of being “in” and looked at her life as she was wading into middle age. She’s never had much trouble making friends or meeting interesting men, despite all of her flaws. Is it because her other personality attributes made up for the imperfections, or was her status based on her good looks and confident attitude?

Well, now she’s older and at least in her mind and despite her best efforts, her looks are fading. She still acts like she’s the hottest thing in town, but if you take a step back, she’s actually fairly average. She lives in a nice house in suburban Connecticut, but by no means is she upper class. Her husband is decent looking, but not movie star good looking. Keep in mind, becoming famous and rich was not only an ambition for her growing up, it seemed almost a foregone conclusion. So, things aren’t really working out for her when it comes to taking things to the next level. She’s wondering if some of the choices she’s been making have been the right ones. At least that’s how the story starts…

Now granted, all of this talk about fitting in and being with the right crowd might seem shallow and trivial. Why aren’t we blogging about more important things, like world peace, war, poverty, the economy, etc…? Fair enough, but I’m saying that this business about not fitting in is at somehow connected to all of those problems! After all, why would you start a war with someone who belonged to your crowd?

Ok, ok, let’s not bite off more than we can chew here – but maybe it’s something we can think about. In the meantime, let’s have some fun with Grace.

Greg Liberman
July, 2009

Thanks for the opportunity to write on your blog, Farrah. I really appreciate the forum and am happy to continue the discussion.
I’ve also started a blog at: http://agingwithgracethenovel.blogspot.com/

The novel is available for sale now at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Aging-Grace-Auth-Greg-Liberman/dp/143923681X/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247235844&sr=1-7

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About The Book Faery

Farrah is from the Raleigh, North Carolina area and married to her high school sweetheart. She's a 30-something mom to 3 crazy yet loveable kids who keep her constantly on her toes. Books can be found in every room in the house and bags as well. Reading is done every moment she gets the chance and a typical afternoon of fun would often find her and the 3 kiddos at a local bookstore or library hunting for the next book. She's currently working towards her goal to one day owning a cafe/bookstore in a historic downtown area where it's all about the reader's experience...community, atmosphere and the love of books.