Literary Novel / Historical Fiction
Date Published: 07-23-2024
Publisher: Vine Leaves Press
Now 80 years old, retirement and advanced age have dissipated the spirit of
six college radicals of the 1960s, who jointly had participated in civil
rights campaigns and anti-war protests. Having engaged in only periodic
communication over the decades, they suddenly receive an invitation to
reunite for an extended weekend. Struggling with whether to go, each of them
has divergent qualms and expectations for the proposed gathering.
During their three days together, they confront their inner demons, each other, and their future. Does Rebecca, the prime mover of the event, find solace after losing her wife and career? Can Malaika regain her sense of self after stepping down from her successful law practice? Mourning the loss of her youthful athletic prowess and attractiveness, what happens when Deanna faces her old friends?
Struggling with two divorces and a failing marriage, can Russell attain peace of mind? How will Max, an expat living in Canada, manage with his incipient dementia? Will the demoralized Keith recover his idealism?
Wrinkled Rebels is a story of how six people achieve meaningful lives through the struggle for social justice. It is also a tale of love, the bonds of friendship, and growing old positively.
Read an excerpt below
About the Author
Laura Katz Olson, AGF Distinguished Professor of Political Science, has taught at Lehigh University since 1974. To date, she has published nine nonfiction books, focusing on aging and healthcare. Her latest, Ethically Challenged: Private Equity Storms U.S. Health Care has been awarded several gold medals, including from the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and the Benjamin Franklin Awards. Elder Care Journey: A View from the Front Lines, which relates her personal experiences as a caregiver for her mother, won a Gold Medal in the Ninth Annual Living Now Book Awards. Wrinkled Rebels is her second novel.
Contact Links
Twitter @lauralee111
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Excerpt from "Wrinkled Rebels"
Malaika walks into the bathroom and stares intently into the
mirror. When did she first become herself, she wonders. Or at least this
version of herself. She knew that lives transform as people grow old. Hers
certainly has. But how much has she changed? She pushes a spiral lock of hair
from her face. Perhaps this latest version of herself is just a recycled form
of her young one but more wrinkled, with considerably fewer brain cells and
certainly far fewer expectations for the future. Her voice quivers as she tells
the contorted facial image, “I had wanted to change the world. Now I’m
through.”
Even her to-do lists have disappeared, those scraps of paper
that assured her that there was something demanding her attention. They were a
sign of optimism, a sense of moving forward as she crossed out completed
obligations. Since new ones promptly replaced the old, her life was always in
motion. Or so it had seemed. Malaika even feels the absence of the jarring
sound of her alarm clock, its unvarying buzz that begrudged her sleep but
announced the opening of a new, wondrous day. Nowadays, it is silent. She’s not
taking retirement well and is feeling at loose ends. The law firm had been a
guardrail. Without the everyday challenges, she is plunging downward into an
abyss. Darryl has been urging her to go to the reunion, as have her four
children. They seem to agree that the group might raise her spirits and even
light a fire under her to search for a new meaning in life. Malaika’s not so sure. Her husband, who
retired from the law school faculty twenty years ago, leisurely has pursued
model boat building, baking, photography, and refurbishing items around the
house, even when they’re perfectly fine, in her opinion.
He has taken to proposing pastimes for her, writing them on a small pad placed on her dresser each morning. This tender gesture irks her; she rips the paper out, crumples it into a ball, and pitches the wad toward the waste basket across the room, usually short of the mark. She remains unmotivated … hobbies are just not for her.
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