For Everyone Old, Getting Old, or Loving Someone Who Is.

A memoir about aging that goes where most books won’t—into the actual, daily, unvarnished reality of being old.

At nearly 90, feminist activist and award-winning author Sandra Butler delivers Now What? Notes From the Front Lines of Old Age, a bracing, big-hearted follow-up to Leaving Home at 83. Readers of that book called it “a captivating” and “informing” read that left them feeling “so much more informed and much less alone.” This book does the same—and then some.

In these sharp personal stories, Butler moves through doctors’ offices and dining rooms, laundry rooms and long afternoons. She writes about the body’s negotiations, the bureaucracy of “care,” the clatter of hearing aids, the hush of hard decisions, the tenderness of friendship, and the stubborn joy that keeps surfacing anyway. She takes on subjects most writers avoid entirely—sexuality, death, truth and lies, and the complicated tangle of multigenerational relationships.

This is not a how-to guide to aging. It is a how-it-is—told with radical honesty, wry feminist humor, and profound humanity. Whether you read it as a standalone or as the third in Butler’s series of personal memoirs, it stands fully on its own.

Praise for Now What?

“Now What? Notes From The Front Lines of Old Age spoke to me. It provoked me to think, reflect on my own memories, do some Google research, and laugh out loud. I feel so much more informed and much less alone. I urge you to read Now What? so that you will, too.”

—Ellen P. Chapnick, Former Dean for Social Justice Initiatives at Columbia Law School, Co-founder of Canvassing Connectors

“Rare is the writer who tells the truth and is even funny. Sandra Butler, a true original, is an old queer woman who moved in her eighties to live in Tucson, Arizona, where she miraculously managed to create a new life. and tell us all about it in a captivating book. Amazingly, now, she gives us another wonderful book about what life on the front lines of old age looks like. Hers is a blueprint for us all to live with humor and joy, no matter what.”

—Esther Cohen, Writer, teacher, cultural activist”In Now What?, Sandra Butler presents us with both reflections on her long life as a feminist activist and a model of aging with determined dignity, unflinching honesty—and gently ironic humor. The third on her journey from “young-old” to “old-old,” this book is an advance scout’s guide for those of us in our perplexing 70s whose bodies, minds, and community ties have begun to shape-shift. Butler’s account is a welcome model for mindful aging and a testament to truth-telling as a source of freedom for the teller and her readers.”

—Rivkah Walton, Founding Director, Institute for Contemporary Midrash, Board Chair, Shtetl 2.0: Northwest Philly Jews & Friends Aging in Community

“Sandra Butler serves her familiar fierce Torah of Jewish humor and queer feminist wisdom along with unapologetic vulnerability about the physical, emotional, political and spiritual complexities of aging. As she writes,  ‘My preference has always been to talk through my life, and not wait till the end to murmur a declaration or two.’ Sandy peels back the veil and talks directly to the reader about potent aspects of old age that are often avoided, such as sexuality, death, truth and lies, and multigenerational mothering and daughtering. Relationships with friends, comrades, daughters and ancestors will be moved, challenged and inspired by the stories in this volume, which I receive as a loving gift and powerful addition to her series of personal memoirs. Amen Selah!”

—Karen Erlichman, Psychotherapist, Spiritual Director and Writer