On the HahaFiction shelf
How to Age Disgracefully
Audiobook available · 8 hr 11 min
Lydia’s London seniors’ club attracts people with more complicated lives than she expects, including Art, an actor who shoplifts, and Daphne, who keeps her past to herself. When their community center faces a sale, the club joins forces with the neighboring daycare, a teenage father and an elderly dog to save it.
From the author’s blurb
“When age makes you invisible, secrets are easier to hide”Read the full description at Clare Pooley’s author website
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What makes it funny?
A police stop in the opening sends a minibus full of passengers into competing confessions before the officer can explain what she wants. Then a child swears, and the adults applaud: he has finally spoken his first words.
The comedy at work
The policewoman’s assumptions about the older passengers leave her poorly prepared for their answers. Pooley keeps adding admissions and interruptions until the inquiry escapes the officer’s control. Daphne’s bluntness and the group’s later resistance to officials carry that irreverence into the campaign for the center.
Try this if…
Older protagonists with secrets and questionable methods lead this community comedy. Readers who enjoy an ensemble assembling improbable plans may find particular appeal in the seniors’ alliance with children and a teenage parent.
Good to know
There is strong profanity in the opening, including a child’s first words. The group’s behavior includes theft and suspicions of other crimes.
A few distinguishing details
- A minibus police stop with too many confessions
- Seniors and daycare children defending a shared community center
More funny contemporary & literary
Sources & further reading
- Publishers Weekly review
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