The Second Half: Thoughts From a Male Mid-Life Crisis Book

Oscar Wilde opined that youth is wasted on the young. John Crace takes this a wry step further in The Second Half: "My teens, twenties and thirties have been nothing but a complete waste of everyone's time. My own especially". The only problem for Crace is that being 40 turns out to be even worse than what came before; if only he can make it another 25 years, he'll be able to take drugs again--and this time they'll be prescribed. Crace is a man lacking in everything but self-pity and a sense of humour. He's a balding, out-of-shape, cranky, neurotic, "a lollipop on a Simian stick". But worse than that, he's getting old. In his first book Baby Alarm, Crace took on the perils of parenthood. Now, he's serving us the brutally funny truth about mid-life crisis. All the ingredients of ageing are there, and Crace, MC (Master Chef?) of his own roast, lays them out for us with a mix of sometimes crude but always straight-edged wit. We find him counting hair-loss in bed, trying to fall asleep and escape nagging fears that he's coming down with a case of BSE, HIV or even PMS. Crace cooks up such a pathetic and incisive self- portrait that, younger or older, you are sure to come away feeling better off. The Second Half ignores the usual stuff of narrative such as plot, character development and dénouement, but then the subtitle of the book makes it clear what you should expect: "Thoughts from a male mid-life crisis". The author himself points out, "All this may just seem like everyday stuff--I hope so anyway. It's not just me, is it? Is it?" -- Kevin LapinRead More