Ove, Tova, and Iona Iverson - How Popular Novels Are Vibrantly Rewriting Aging
Three Book Club Favorites Are Flipping the Script
Three bestsellers are beautifully reversing the abiding societal narrative that aging is a sad, solitary inevitability to be postponed as long as possible. Instead, they illuminate it.
“The third age”, as it’s called in Spanish, can be a new beginning. It can overflow with the unexpected. It can even be exciting. Your life is not over when you “age out” of cultural relevance.
We respect our elders in principle, and students interview their grandparents for required essay assignments. But do we value them? Does their experience matter to us once they can no longer “contribute”? We honor their pasts, but we do not see them as having a future of any significance.
Meet three authors who do. Fredrik Backman, Clare Pooley, and Shelby Van Pelt aren’t relegating older people to the old folks’ home or putting them on an ice floe and shoving. These Swedish, British, and American novelists center aging characters in stories. They aren’t peripheral supporting characters who exist only to advance someone else’s plot; they’re the main characters. Most stories limit older characters to human-shaped fortune cookies, dispensing the occasional wisdom for someone more interesting doing something more important. “Life is like a box of chocolates,” but we know almost nothing about Mrs. Gump’s life, nor are we supposed to be curious about anything beyond her relationship to the main character and what she can do for him. Robin Williams as Will Hunting’s therapist gets a little bit of a back story, but he, too, is an intermittent magical assistant more than a main character.
This isn’t to say older and elderly people can never be supporting characters. But reading and seeing them as main characters shouldn’t be rare.
At first, it would be easy enough to dismiss “A Man Called Ove” as grumpy old man syndrome. But Ove’s fastidiousness quickly reveals itself to be rooted in profoundly principled integrity. He’s not just “Get off my lawn”, he’s the rare man whose values, technical skills, craftsmanship, and work ethic make strangers shake their heads appraisingly, “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.” The recent windower soon finds his solitude and his rigid routine challenged by new neighbors, old enemies, and a fresh start he’s not even sure he wants. If he’ll let them, the strays will rescue him.
Though the plot could be mistaken for a Swedish remake of Gran Torino, it solidly asserts its own charming uniqueness with universal relatability.
In the Pacific Northwest, a first-generation Swedish widow is also considering a big transition while a traumatic loss still haunts her. Unlike Ove, Tova Sullivan has a small group of friends, a suitor she may or may not consider dating, and a feckless, entitled coworker she feels drawn to help. Her sometimes nosy friends are more than concerned that she has suddenly chosen to take a job cleaning the local aquarium at night. Does she need the money? Is she ok?
“Remarkably Bright Creatures” features two main characters who rarely get to tell their own stories: an elderly woman and an animal.
Marcellus, the giant Pacific octopus, is not unlike Ove in his world-weary exasperation with irrationally emotional humans. Regardless, both gentlemen feel compelled to share their wisdom, and neither can help but care for and about the complicated people who cross their paths.
As Tova’s connection to Marcellus deepens, her story slowly unfolds. Between her, her friends, her potential suitor, the octopus, and an aging aunt, the majority of the characters are older. They all show how many different ways we can age.
Where Tova is a quiet force, Iona of Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting is every bit the brash, sassy old lady stereotype with her big mouth and bold colors—the only trope in which older women get to be vivacious and outspoken. Some of her professional ethics are as questionable as her personal meddling, but as the doyenne of magazine advice columnists, she’s starting to feel her industry, and the world, moving on without her. And she’s refusing to let that happen.
Ove tries his damndest to keep everyone at arm’s length, but Iona plays the puppet master. Though she keeps her greatest personal loss a fiercely guarded secret, she handles her grief by drawing people into her and connecting them to each other.
Ove fixes all things broken, Tova meditatively cleans, and Iona spins webs. They are all defined by their love and losses and guided by their integrity, but ultimately, they are motivated by the needs of others.
Each of these authors created complex characters who bear the weight of their own experience. They remind readers to do the right thing regardless of the rules. All three of their protagonists break the rules when necessary because morality is its own true north, whether you work nights and no one’s watching, or you’re defending vulnerable people when everyone’s watching. And the uplifting through line in all these novels is that true connection is its own reward. There’s more than one kind of family because there’s more than one kind of love. Building community takes work and sacrifice, but it is absolutely, beautifully worth it.
In the real world, we are living longer each generation, but we have not developed enough affordable, dignified living options for the elderly, particularly when our loved ones need full-time memory care and have ever-decreasing mobility.
Multigenerational cohabitation is rare in the U.S. Grandparents are appreciated babysitters, but overworked Americans (especially working moms also caring for school-aged children) are understandably overwhelmed by the prospect of simultaneously caregiving for aging dependent parents. The Baby Boomers have become the sandwich generation.
American culture largely dreads old age and pities the elderly because we value independence above all else. Even the elderly themselves don’t seem to like other old people. In the four years I worked at a retirement home, I very rarely saw any of the 75 residents talk to each other. But I did see a lot of sad, lonely people quietly waiting for life to happen to them. With more than a little internalized ageism, old folks also seem to prefer being around young people.
When these depressing realities buzz louder and louder in the everyday American background, it’s refreshing and humanizing to see older people depicted with charm, depth, nuance, and humor. It’s a relief to see them thriving at the center of vibrant communities. We all want to matter. We all want to belong.
Maybe these book club favorites are international bestsellers because “elderly” stories matter too. Maybe “old people” are inherently interesting, compelling, and deeply relevant because of their age, not in spite of it.
It’s been a long time since Cocoon and The Golden Girls made people laugh while also creating an inviting space for us to contemplate the future and confront our own mortality.
Children’s book author Terrill Martinez says, “When we’re little, we think about what kind of grownup we want to be. Now that we’re adults we can think about what kind of older person we want to be.”
These authors aren’t just telling cautionary tales about wasting away in isolationism. By proving how much adversity, complexity, love, and joy still await you, regardless of your age, they’re taking the fear out of aging. You can have a dignified life that also allows for solitude. But you can’t live a purposeful, joyful life without meaningful community.
When you’re choosing visionary authors who tell untold stories, don’t forget to shop at your local, independent bookstores. Support your local public library by borrowing physical books or renting digital books online. Or subscribe to Libby for free ebooks and audiobooks.