An Old Wife's Tale: My Seven Decades in Love and War by Midge Decter

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This beautifully written book offers a memorable chronicle of American life since the 1940s that would be hard to match in sweep, unconventional thought, and hard-won wisdom on subjects ranging from the relations between the sexes to the relations between America and the world.

One of the nation's most renowned female conservatives, Midge Decter is known for her frequently controversial stands on modern social issues. An Old Wife's Tale is her thoughtful examination of the lives of American women and men over the last 60 years, as viewed through the lens ofher own life. From stories of her youth during World War II—when Decter and her friends learned that "only the class beauty and the class tramp had no difficulty with the dating system"—to a surprising and often hilarious picture of what the Fifties were really like, to an account of her later roles as single mother, publishing executive, happily married woman, political iconoclast, and doting grandmother, Decter paints a singular portrait of a life lived on the front lines of American culture.

By turns serious, wry, and deeply personal, An Old Wife's Tale brings us an important new perspective on twentieth-century American life.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Oh, What a Lovely War
2. My Blue Heaven
3. Having It All
4. Memories of the Words of Women
5. Strormy Weather
6. Coming Out
7. A Time to Sow, A Time to Reap
8. Happy Days Were Here Again
9. Last Things, and First
10. Girls Fleeing Freedom
11. To Startle This Dull Pain
12. Where the Boys Are