A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance

As a woman of a "certain age," I know exactly what Jane Juska was up against: the Rules of Sexual Behavior that (even into the early 1960's) were ingrained into any woman with a proper upbringing. To wit: 1. Women don't enjoy sex. 2. Men think of nothing else. 3. Get him to marry you by promising him sex, but don't deliver until you're married. 4. Sex is for making babies. 5. Once you're past making babies, you have no further use for sex. Juska didn't conform to 1., so she flunked 3. and landed, first in a loveless shotgun marriage, then in impecunious single (and celibate) parenthood. Finally, at age 66, when 5. proved to be inapplicable to her too, she decided to catch up on what she'd been missing, and this book documents the results. Juska is a terrific writer, funny, frank, and engaging. She doesn't idealize herself: she's an effective teacher but a less-than-perfect mother; she spent many years overweight, unfit, and with a serious drinking problem; and she regularly puts her foot in her mouth, often with hilarious results. But she's courageous (anyone who teaches at San Quentin is a candidate for sainthood in my book), and when she commits herself to something (or someone) she follows through. Having a fair amount of experience myself with middle-aged dating, I found Juska's adventures horrifically believable. (The men our age, after all, were raised with the Rules too.) But she's resilient, good-humored, and willing to take each man she meets on his own terms; she enjoys the experience fully, even if it proves to be short-lived. She observes wryly, near the end of the book, that most of the men she met were trying to prove something to *themselves* by having sex with her; by contrast, she approaches each new encounter with an open mind, and is hurt more than once when a man turns out to have a hidden agenda. I wasn't surprised that her most gratifying relationship was with a man in his 30's -- he doesn't have the same prejudices and preconceptions as the men her age. And, I think, the fact that it's an "impossible" relationship is liberating: they have no expectations to fulfill, so they're free to enjoy their encounters without feeling obliged to have weighty discussions about Our Future. I enjoyed the book thoroughly, and would recommend it to almost any adult, but especially to two sets of readers: (1) middle-aged women as an example of what can happen if you set out to be, fully and frankly, yourself; and (2) middle-aged men, as an education in what's out there if you abandon your stereotypes and take an honest look at the women your age.

For decades, the personals section of _The New York Review of Books_ has been a cheerful island of sexuality within an august intellectual setting. Those of us who browse it out of curiosity rather than sincere shopping can't help but wonder how these attempts at finding love turn out. Will the beautiful, brainy SJF, earthmother, find her sweet, brilliant, companionable sexy beast? Will the adventurous, intellectual, DWM, 47, periodontist, photographer, musician, cat-lover find his full-figured woman for passionate sex and scintillating discussions? (I am citing real ads from a recent issue.) Thanks to Jane Juska, we know, quite thoroughly, how one of those ads played out. Juska was watching an Eric Roehmer film in Berkeley, carefully munching her malted milk balls, when she started writing her ad. Carefully budgeting the $4.55-per-word prose, she eventually submitted, "Before I turn 67 - next March - I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me." Her funny, revealing, and smart book, _A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance_ (Villard), shows that the old slogan is quite true: it pays to advertise.If you are not "of a certain age", Juska's title might elude you. It is an old phrase that indicates a woman who is easy to get to go from vertical to horizontal. "My heels are very round," she writes, "I'm an easy lay. An easy sixty-seven year old lay. 'Twas not always so." She had gone through decades of not having a man in her life. This is not just a story of what happened once she placed her ad, but also a memoir of her life so far that led to its placement. She recounts a Midwest upbringing, sad marriage, divorce, single motherhood, teaching high school (and prison) English, her love for the novels of Anthony Trollope, and much more. Of course the main fare is how Juska managed her respondents. She triaged the letters into Yes, No, and Maybe, stacks that proved not to be rigid. Her first encounter, filled with all the worry that would do justice to any virginal adolescent, could not have been worse; the cad had sent an outdated photograph and steals her champagne flutes and her pajama bottoms. Good writing paid off for another: "... a varied syntax sends shivers up and down my spine." She fell in love with a man who only wanted a friend. She had completely successful encounters with a man who was thirty-five. He wrote her that he realized "that there is a somewhat substantial age gap between us (not quite Harold and Maude, but in the neighborhood)" but that age didn't matter for people that mattered to him. He sounds too good to be true, but there isn't any disillusionment at the book's end. There has already been backlash about the book; many would have been better pleased if she had followed the path old ladies are supposed to take and did not admit to any lingering libido. Of course, then there would not have been any book, and then there

...Everyone wants to hear how Jane, at her age, had sex and lots of it. But as Jane herself points out, people of all ages are inspired by her writing and have informed her that the lifestyle she details is not so uncommon. It's an admirable breakthrough, flouting our stereotypes of old age. The book is also unique in its ability to catch the reader off guard as we learn who Jane is, how she remembers her life and how eloquently she is able to reveal not just the most intimate details of sex, but also the intimate details of her mind. And it's a fascinating mind.When Jane showed up at our studios, sweet and unassuming, I made her blush by asking her to autograph my review copy. She's the real deal, and I look forward to her next book, now that she's discovered the writer within her. You see? It's never too late.

Long awaited book since the first reviews and all the hype appeared. Thank goodness she lives in Berkeley, 2 minutes from me, as that means I'll be able to attend a book reading somewhere nearby. The lady's got guts, chutzpah, joie de vivre, etc - - - but most of all, boy, can she write!The narrative arc of A Round-Heeled Woman is framed on Juska's desire for a truly fulfilling sexual relationship for, one may assume, the first time in her life. After decades as a teacher and a single mom, looking old age eyeball-to-eyeball, she leaps into the bizarre world of Personals Ads and comes up a winner.Deeper, however, than the sexual narrative, is the story of her blossoming as a fully-actualized woman.What's not to love about this book? I didn't find anything.

Jane Juska's new book, A Round Heeled Woman, is not just a tale of the results of her advertisement for a sexual relationship with "a man I like". She meets some wonderful and some not so wonderful men, and the reader suffers through the disappointments and rejections and cheers the successes. (And there are several.) Yet it is her narrative of teaching in High School and at San Quentin that is so poignant and shows as much about who she is as does the ad which depicts her as a daring woman who is looking for a connection at long last, a woman who "wants to be touched" . One hopes that she writes another book, and quickly, about her teaching years, all forty of them, and in particular more about her prison students. This book is true and real and very funny and I couldn't put it down. I for one would love to meet this remarkable woman.