Certain Woman of an Age

by Margaret Trudeau

listening time = 1h 13m

Margaret Trudeau, former wife of Canada’s 15th Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, and mother of Canada’s current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, opens up with refreshing candor in her one-woman show, Certain Woman of an Age, the compelling true story of one of the world's most fascinating figures. Through vividly told public and private anecdotes, the Audible Original weaves a raw and revealing journey of motherhood, loss, mental illness, and feminism. Co-written with Alix Sobler and directed by Kimberly Senior, Certain Woman of an Age is "fearless and vulnerable" (Chicago Tribune).

International mental health advocate Margaret Trudeau brought her intimate solo performance, Certain Woman of an Age, to the Minetta Lane Theatre, where it was recorded live for Audible Theater.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, Memoir, Biography, Autobiography, Humor, Biography Memoir

2 pages, Audible Audio

First published March 5, 2020

About the author

Margaret Joan Trudeau (née Sinclair, formerly Kemper; born September 10, 1948) is a Canadian author, actress, photographer, former television talk show hostess, and social advocate for people with bipolar disorder, with which she is diagnosed. She is the former wife of Pierre Trudeau, 15th Prime Minister of Canada; they divorced in 1984, during his final months in office. She is the mother of Justin Trudeau, the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada; the journalist and author Alexandre "Sacha" Trudeau;] and the deceased Michel Trudeau. She is the first woman in Canadian history to have been both the wife and the mother of a prime minister.

From 2002 to 2017, Trudeau was the honorary president of WaterAid Canada, an Ottawa-based organization dedicated to helping the poorest communities in developing countries build sustainable water supply and sanitation services. In 2014, she visited Mali as an ambassador of WaterAid Canada.

On May 5, 2006, Trudeau announced she has bipolar disorder. Since then, she advocated for reducing the social-stigma of mental illness—bipolar disorder in particular—with speaking engagements across North America. In May 2019, she presented the one-woman-show Certain Woman of an Age in Chicago as part of the city's Wellness Week. She is an honorary patron of the Canadian Mental Health Association. In July 2019, she attended an opening ceremony of WE College in Narok County (Kenya) with the Former Prime Minister of Canada Kim Campbell, The First Lady Margaret Kenyatta and Craig Kielburger, a co-founder of WE Charity organization.

In 2010, she authored Changing My Mind, a book about her personal experience with bipolar disorder.

In 2013, Trudeau received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Western Ontario in recognition of her work to combat mental illness.

[taken from Wikipedia article on Margaret Trudeau]

Reviews

[Ilana (illi69) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute! Kind of strange to say, but that’s the impression I was left with. I grew up with Margaret Trudeau as part of our cultural heritage as Canadians, and been curious about her, especially since she started being vocal about living with bipolar disorder, but this was my first contact with her, having not watched her in interviews or read her books. She covers themes like going from being an accidental feminist to becoming a dedicated one; what it’s been like being an attractive woman in the limelight (not as easy or fun or as glamorous as people think); being married to a Canadian prime minister and of course the mother of our current head of state, losing a son, and living with bipolar disorder—which involves going through the same 5 stages of grief before accepting the diagnosis and doing what it takes to get better. She’s charming and her delivery is quite breathy. She sounds like she’s enjoying herself or very nervous, or both. Can’t complain as it was a free Audible track and a nice way to spend an hour or so listening.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Celebrate Woman’s History Month by reading about a truly memorable icon of the 70s, Margaret Trudeau! Wife of Canada’s 15th Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, and mother of the current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

In this hour long one woman show she shares what it was like being a famous woman, a beautiful woman, a bipolar woman. It was funny, heartfelt, and educational.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an Audible member, I get a choice of two free Audible Originals every month. I hate to waste them but there are limited choices and I usually end up picking the two that I find the least unappealing. If it’s not something I would normally pick, maybe it'll expand my horizons and sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised. This is one of those.

I remember Margaret Trudeau. She was the wife of the Prime Minister when I was growing up. I remember hearing about how glamorous she was because she was beautiful and hung out with all those celebrities. I just assumed that those were the only remarkable things about her.

Nevertheless, I figured this short one-woman show would have something interesting to share and it certainly did. I salute Margaret for this life-affirming production where she relates some hard-won wisdom about relationships, feminism, the struggle with mental illness, the search for meaning, and the soul-destroying loss of a child. I have pretty much nothing in common with her, other than being Canadian, so I never expected to be so moved.

She survived and learned from her experiences. Not everyone can say that. I guess she’s more than just a pretty face after all.

Considering its length, it’s worth your time even if you don’t get it for free.

[LoriO · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm being cranky today; normally, this would be 2.5 rounded up, not down. But this was an Audible Original, which means that the presentation was focused on; it was created for audio, not for reading. Had I read it, I think it would have been a more solid 3 or more. But Trudeau's way of talking to an audience...ugh. Couldn't be more condescending in tone. She was clearly nervous at the beginning...and I felt for her. But as a performer, which is what she was doing here, maybe she should have been more thoroughly rehearsed or edited in some way. Also this lacked in depth of any kind, really. There were so many references to things that clearly I was meant to know already and very much did not. I needed more explanation; I needed fewer allusions and more specifics. Still, despite the lack of stars above, I learned more about Trudeau than I knew already, so it was worth the hour-plus of my time. It just could have been SO much more.

[Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a re-posting as the original audiobook, ratings and reviews were deleted in the 2020 Audible Original new purge by Goodreads. Based on 2019's experience new postings and/or outlier editions of these audiobooks will appear that will allow you to restore your rating and review if you have written and saved it offline. Follow the ongoing debate about this issue at Why Audible Originals are being considered NOT A BOOK.

Original Review:
Mental Health Advocacy as Stand-up Stage Show
Review of the Audible Original audiobook (March 5, 2020)

Once I was wearing very high, very fabulous heels when I met the Queen of England on one of her visits to Canada. I was standing on the tarmac when she got off the plane and we shook hands and I went down into a curtsy and I started wobbling a little bit, and oh-oh, I was down and it suddenly became crystal clear that I was not getting up, and without a flicker of expression on her face the Queen strengthened her arm and she pulled me up to my feet. Her grip was iron. I might still be there today if she hadn't lent me her strength. And she never stopped smiling the whole time. - Margaret Trudeau in Certain Woman of an Age

I particularly liked the above anecdote as it was entirely new to me and because it displays very well both Margaret Trudeau's good-spirited self-deprecatory humour and Queen Elizabeth II's solid quiet strength when under public scrutiny. I enjoyed this 73 minute stage performance which consists of Trudeau's wide range of public and private anecdotes which she delivers in an uplifting tale of resilience and survival. Trudeau has been an advocate for mental health issues since publicly revealing her bipolar diagnosis in 2006.

Certain Woman of an Age is one of the free Audible Originals for Audible members in March 2020. It is available to everyone for a standard price.

Trivia and Link
You can read an interview with Margaret Trudeau that was concurrent with her New York staging of the show in September 2019 at Margaret Trudeau has the last laugh in Certain Woman of an Age.

[Joni Janice Mielke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had not expected the performance/concert aspect of this audiobook, but I got used to it quickly. I enjoyed Margaret's candid honesty and I admire her confidence in engaging with the audience - in the immediate sense of the recording - and the listener in the secondary sense of the Audible Original. Her answers to the five questions that form the core of her show were unrehearsed and natural, yet eloquent and entertaining. It's refreshing to hear the unvarnished truth of someone who has had a very high-profile life. Margaret comes across as strong, but ultimately human, being prone to pain, grief, illness and anything else that make public figures relatable. A very good show - I would recommend a listen.

[Jackballoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like Margaret Trudeau!

[Allison ༻hikes the bookwoods༺ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m so glad I decided to listen to this Audible Original. It packs Margaret Trudeau’s life in her own words in a short one hour punch. It’s funny, emotional, and heartfelt.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t even know who she was when I got this Audible original one-woman-show, but I found Justin Trudeau’s mother to be thoroughly amusing and real. I laughed out loud several times as she discussed her wild past as wife of the Canadian Prime Minister and was moved by her honesty about her struggles dealing with bipolar disorder. Well worth a listen!!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Audible Original was just the exact length I needed today - a day full of errands in the car. I listened to it start-to-finish and ran the gamut of emotions. Margaret Trudeau was married to Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, and is the mother of current PM, Justin Trudeau. She married young and to a man decades her senior. She had three children with Trudeau before she left the marriage, feeling stifled and stilted by his expectations of her (or lack thereof). She went on to date men like Ryan O'Neal, Jack Nicholson. She hung out with the Rolling Stones, Andy Warhol, and other celebs. She was young, beautiful, and brushed shoulders with the glitterati, but she struggled with bi-polar disorder all her life. She lost her twenty-three year old son to a tragic accident and then watched his father, her ex-husband, die of a treatable cancer on the heels of losing their son. Her second marriage fell apart during this time, and she spiraled into her third stay in a mental hospital before she could fully embrace her life and be grateful for all she had. In this audible memoir, she talks about the importance of staying on prescription drugs, being true to who you truly are, and answers five questions from the audience.

I was going to give this 3 stars (3.5) because Trudeau's delivery was sometimes a bit too much for me. Then I wondered, if I'd read rather than listened to the content, what I would have rated it. It's four star content.

[Liza Wiemer]

Fascinating look at Margaret Trudeau's life and the powerful story of her coming to terms with her mental illness.

[Signe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Margaret has a very gushy, grandiose theatrical style which takes a certain energy to listen to. I understand her a little better perhaps, but she remains enigmatic, proclaiming herself a feminist while also saying she existed to be a pretty diversion for hard-working men.


It’s hard to know when it’s her people-pleasing persona, her bipolar illness or her true self talking. She’s a shape-shifter, becoming whatever a certain era wanted, albeit in her own way. She got the dinner dress code changed at 24 Sussex Drive after the fiasco of wearing a skirt 5” too short to a dinner with the Carters. But seriously, that was your greatest influence as First Lady? I know PET would throw out all the Ms magazines Gloria Steinem sent, but still... I guess she was too sick to be wrapped up in anything but herself and spending money on clothes.

I imagine it must have been very hard for her 5 children growing up to have her as a mother. I wish this were written in book format so important issues could’ve been discussed deeper, like her (seemingly favourite) son’s death, the death of PET, and her hospitalizations for bipolar disorder. Also, writing out the questions for the audience to ask is pretty controlling. It’s the Maggie show all the way.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Sometimes my adventurous spirit mixed together with my bipolar disorder got me in trouble. Sometimes with my family. Sometimes with foreign dignitaries. Mostly with the press."

Margaret Trudeau is honest and funny in this short Audible Original. She speaks up about her battles with mental illness, the loss of her child, the struggle of being the Prime Minister's wife and then his ex-wife. I didn't know much about Margaret before this book, just that she is Justin's mother. But I came away from it with a greater appreciation for her and her advocacy for mental illness awareness and feminism. Margaret's battle with bipolar disorder led her to depressive lows and manic highs, but she claims that accepting her disorder may have saved her life.

"Some things you don't want to live through. And some of us don't."

When she spoke about the loss of her child, I was nearly in tears. It was very honest and real, it was easy to feel the sorrow that she must still carry with her. Everyone's lost someone. Everyone wonders about that last moment spent together, your final goodbye when you didn't know it was final. That's a pain that will never go away, entirely.
The message in this is clear, feminism, love, and advocacy for awareness of mental illnesses. It's nothing to blow you away, but a fast and interesting one to listen to.

"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

[Dana Al-Basha | دانة الباشا · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poor woman... I just felt sorry for her. I also didn't care for the voice quality. I've never heard of her before, Margaret is the mother of Justin Trudeau who is the prime minister of Canda and she was the wife of his father who was also a previous president.

Margaret tells us she was beautiful (that's emphasized a LOT!), reckless and she is diagnosed with bipolar. She is famous for her scandalous behavior and many relationships. She is BIG on dropping names of well-known people, like the previous queen of my country Alia... though she spelled her name incorrectly. I gotta say, I didn't like the woman much, she speaks like a 20-century movie star, but even if she says she is a feminist, she obviously isn't. I don't know... I just felt sorry for her for the whole hour she spoke. She seems to me like a lost soul, misunderstood by her family and even herself and she just loves the spotlight.

[Juan Rivera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Margaret Trudeau's life is very interesting. Wife of Pierre Trudeau when he was 23 years old, Prime Minister of Canada and now the mother of the current Prime Minister, his life is full of ups and downs.

Sick of a personality disorder, married to a man who was 28 years old, because when they married they were 51, mother of five children, one of whom died very young in an avalanche accident. Hospitalized multiple times for her psychiatric disorder. His life is an adventure, his legendary beauty.

Her book "Certain woman of an age", a small sample of her thinking and her life.

[Amy Ingalls · Rating 3 out of 5]

Margaret Trudeau was honest about her bipolar and the death of her child, which made moments of this short biographical show both funny and heartbreaking. However, I think I would have preferred this as a full-length memoir. She mentioned so many snippets of events that I would like to know more about. Before listening, it never occured to me that I needed to know more about Margaret Trudeau, so three stars for getting me interested enough that I may just look her up.

[Leah Agirlandaboy]

This is a one-woman show by the former First Lady of Canada (and Justin’s mother). I went in knowing nothing and came out knowing A LOT. She covers a lot of ground in this quick listen—struggles with mental illness, struggles with being a woman in a man’s world, struggles with being rich and famous, struggles with being the center of scandal after scandal—and she is, to put it lightly, a real character. If you don’t know Margaret Trudeau, you’re in for a surprise.

[Ingrid Stephens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit I knew little of Margaret Trudeau other than she was Pierre Trudeau's wife and Justin Trudeau's mother. This short story of her life, where she corrects the things she edited out of her other biographies is indeed enlightening. She is Bipolar, and hides nothing as she takes ownership of her past, her present and her mental illness. She is a hell of a woman and I salute her.

[Alaina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another interesting audible original!

Certain Woman of an Age has it's moments. I really liked how she dove into mental health issues and that Margaret just happens to be a very interesting person overall. It was short and to the point but sometimes, I want these originals to be a smidge longer. Plus, this audio book didn't really sound like a book to me. More like a play.. which sometimes these kind of are. I just wished it was like a little video instead of an audio ya know? That way I can see and listen at the same time.

Maybe one day Amazon will create these original audibles into little shorts that we can enjoy them another way?

[Arda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This definitely exceeded my expectations. What a rollercoaster.

[Ginger Gritzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting life she led.

[The Book Palace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but so strange. She does sound crazy haha.

[Дмитрий · Rating 4 out of 5]

Интересный рассказ первой леди Канады и матери канадского премьер-министра о борьбе с психическим расстройством и прочими проблемами.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This reminded me a LOT of listening to Carrie Fisher’s books, even the voice.

[Lin F · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars based mostly on the last 20 minutes or so (4 stars for the rest). As a bereaved mom, that part spoke intimately to me.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this lady.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I knew nothing about her and this was really interesting. Very much like Carrie Fisher's biography.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Touching. She shares some wonderful ideas about life as she seeks to educate people about mental illness.

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 rounded down. Margaret Trudeau is rather egotistical, but her message on mental illness is solid.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I too am an advocate for mental health and applaud the effort to overcome the stigma that goes with bipolar. I felt parts of her presentation were "heavy" but told through humor which sometimes sounded silly. Interesting listen.