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Sister Age
In these fifteen remarkable stories, M.F.K. Fisher, one of the most admired writers of our time, embraces the coming of old age. With a saint to guide us, she writes, perhaps we can accept in a loving way "the inevitable visits of a possibly nagging harpy like Sister Age" But in the stories, it is the human strength in the unavoidable encounter with the end of life that Fisher dramatizes so powerfully. Other themes—the importance of witnessing death, the marvelous resilience of the old, the passing of vanity—are all explored with insight, sympathy and, often, a sly wit.
243 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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About the author
M.F.K. Fisher
84 books511 followersMary Frances Kennedy Fisher was a prolific and well-respected writer, writing more than 20 books during her lifetime and also publishing two volumes of journals and correspondence shortly before her death in 1992. Her first book, Serve it Forth, was published in 1937. Her books deal primarily with food, considering it from many aspects: preparation, natural history, culture, and philosophy. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and explored the art of living as a secondary theme in her writing. Her style and pacing are noted elements of her short stories and essays.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
July 20, 2022
M.F.K. Fisher is a masterful stylist, and a wise writer. This book is a mix of fiction short stories and non-fiction vignettes, mainly of her life in France. Surprisingly, though Fisher made her name as a food writer, there is little food writing in here, just sensitive, deeply felt writing about aging and the elderly. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
May 15, 2013
Her prose is always a pleasure to read and re-read. The stories unfold slowly like a French film. France after WWII is the setting for many of the stories. I will read it again.
June 6, 2019
Sister Age is an unusual book from an author who wrote mainly books on cooking. Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was an independent woman, ahead of her time. She spent long periods of her life abroad - in France and Switzerland - and would not name the father of her first child, so for a while lived as a single mother. Tragically the love of her life Dillwyn Parish known as Tim died by suicide.
I mention this because Tim features briefly in the Foreword. It is with him that she discovers a portrait of an old woman Ursula von Ott painted by her son in 1808. It was 1936 and the couple were living in Zurich. Fisher felt moved by the portrait and spent four decades researching the process of ageing and this collection of short stories is “about ageing and ending and living and whatever else the process of human being is about.”
I found it a very mixed bag with some stories speaking to me and others leaving me a little confused along the lines of “what was that about?” Never-the-less what I love about Fisher’s writing is how close she is to her subject. She doesn’t fly over her characters and skim them, (as was usually more common of a writer living as Fisher did 1908-1992) she is at their shoulders or close to their hearts.
There are fifteen stories in this collection and the stories range dramatically in subject matter, although a lot I’m guessing are semi-autobiographical. One of my favourites is the first story in the book - Moment of Wisdom. Narrated in the first person, a twelve year old girl is home alone, Mary herself I’m guessing.
“One day, I came inside, very dusty and hot, with a basket of roses and weeds of beauty. The house seemed mine, airy and empty, full of shade. Perhaps everyone was in Whittier, marketing. I leaned my forehead against the screening of the front porch and breathed the wonderful dry air of temporary freedom, and off from the country road and onto our long narrow driveway came a small man, smaller than I, dressed in the crumpled hot black I recognised at once as the Cloth and carrying a small valise.” What happens next still resonates.
Answer in the Affirmative is an intriguing story about a rug man who comes to the house of a newly married young woman. “I looked with a kind of adoration at his remote, aged face and felt his mysteriously knowing hands move, calm as God’s over my body.”
In the Weather Within, a rather long story, a woman is travelling with her two girls on a passenger freighter from San Francisco to Antwerp. It is a strange but compelling story about an incident that occurs on the journey involving another passenger.
In The Unswept Emptiness there is another caller to the family home - a wax salesman. The sadness of some people’s lives beautifully evoked. Another Love Story takes the reader back to the mid 20th century with a strange fisherman befriending two young girls and their mother.
I found the story The Second Time Around interesting but just too long. But the story that follows The Lost, Strayed, Stolen is delightfully atmospheric and is also a favourite. The Reunion is like a set piece and to me, doesn’t fit into this collection. The Oldest Man I found interesting for the setting of Le Truel in France, rather than the storyline. Although it does read more like a short memoir.
It was growing dark, and down at the bottom of the Tarn Valley by the swift black river it was cold, the way mountains always are when the sunlight goes. We passed a long narrow house with the little road in front of it, and then the river, and straight up behind it the cliff. There, said Georges, was where had left his father for the day, with a niece. There was not space to park, so we drove on down the one-way road to an abandoned powerhouse, where Georges turned the car around and I picked some red roses and we looked farther down the Tarn to the new electrical plant-an enormous and quite beautiful white thing of dams and outlets, with the generators and all the mysterious machines and cables back of it. Then we walked back to the house to salute Pepe.”
A Question Answered is a very weird story and not to my taste but other readers may love it. Diplomatic, Retired is a story that I’m afraid I didn’t feel as much as I should at the ending yet still interesting.
Mrs Teeters’ Tomato Jar I love for the details of a lost world when as Fisher imagines it “Mrs Teeters began to lock up her little house as soon as the garden patch had finished its annual dance. She packed her wagon with jars of canned stuff and supplies and headed down towards Death Valley or northwest toward 29 Palms. Once she decided to stop, she set up her own small tent and a kind of airy cookhouse, with the help of Indian friends, and then waited for business.”
The final three stories are again interesting but haven’t stayed with me like Moment of Wisdom, Another Love Story, The Oldest Man and The Lost Strayed, Stolen have. An interesting collection that I’m glad I read.
I mention this because Tim features briefly in the Foreword. It is with him that she discovers a portrait of an old woman Ursula von Ott painted by her son in 1808. It was 1936 and the couple were living in Zurich. Fisher felt moved by the portrait and spent four decades researching the process of ageing and this collection of short stories is “about ageing and ending and living and whatever else the process of human being is about.”
I found it a very mixed bag with some stories speaking to me and others leaving me a little confused along the lines of “what was that about?” Never-the-less what I love about Fisher’s writing is how close she is to her subject. She doesn’t fly over her characters and skim them, (as was usually more common of a writer living as Fisher did 1908-1992) she is at their shoulders or close to their hearts.
There are fifteen stories in this collection and the stories range dramatically in subject matter, although a lot I’m guessing are semi-autobiographical. One of my favourites is the first story in the book - Moment of Wisdom. Narrated in the first person, a twelve year old girl is home alone, Mary herself I’m guessing.
“One day, I came inside, very dusty and hot, with a basket of roses and weeds of beauty. The house seemed mine, airy and empty, full of shade. Perhaps everyone was in Whittier, marketing. I leaned my forehead against the screening of the front porch and breathed the wonderful dry air of temporary freedom, and off from the country road and onto our long narrow driveway came a small man, smaller than I, dressed in the crumpled hot black I recognised at once as the Cloth and carrying a small valise.” What happens next still resonates.
Answer in the Affirmative is an intriguing story about a rug man who comes to the house of a newly married young woman. “I looked with a kind of adoration at his remote, aged face and felt his mysteriously knowing hands move, calm as God’s over my body.”
In the Weather Within, a rather long story, a woman is travelling with her two girls on a passenger freighter from San Francisco to Antwerp. It is a strange but compelling story about an incident that occurs on the journey involving another passenger.
In The Unswept Emptiness there is another caller to the family home - a wax salesman. The sadness of some people’s lives beautifully evoked. Another Love Story takes the reader back to the mid 20th century with a strange fisherman befriending two young girls and their mother.
I found the story The Second Time Around interesting but just too long. But the story that follows The Lost, Strayed, Stolen is delightfully atmospheric and is also a favourite. The Reunion is like a set piece and to me, doesn’t fit into this collection. The Oldest Man I found interesting for the setting of Le Truel in France, rather than the storyline. Although it does read more like a short memoir.
It was growing dark, and down at the bottom of the Tarn Valley by the swift black river it was cold, the way mountains always are when the sunlight goes. We passed a long narrow house with the little road in front of it, and then the river, and straight up behind it the cliff. There, said Georges, was where had left his father for the day, with a niece. There was not space to park, so we drove on down the one-way road to an abandoned powerhouse, where Georges turned the car around and I picked some red roses and we looked farther down the Tarn to the new electrical plant-an enormous and quite beautiful white thing of dams and outlets, with the generators and all the mysterious machines and cables back of it. Then we walked back to the house to salute Pepe.”
A Question Answered is a very weird story and not to my taste but other readers may love it. Diplomatic, Retired is a story that I’m afraid I didn’t feel as much as I should at the ending yet still interesting.
Mrs Teeters’ Tomato Jar I love for the details of a lost world when as Fisher imagines it “Mrs Teeters began to lock up her little house as soon as the garden patch had finished its annual dance. She packed her wagon with jars of canned stuff and supplies and headed down towards Death Valley or northwest toward 29 Palms. Once she decided to stop, she set up her own small tent and a kind of airy cookhouse, with the help of Indian friends, and then waited for business.”
The final three stories are again interesting but haven’t stayed with me like Moment of Wisdom, Another Love Story, The Oldest Man and The Lost Strayed, Stolen have. An interesting collection that I’m glad I read.
May 8, 2009
Although she is known for her culinary writing, this book shows that M.F.K. Fisher is a powerful writer about spiritually moving subjects as well. As the introduction states, Fisher in these vignettes is suggesting we embrace Sister Age as St. Francis said we should embrace Brother Death. The results are not bathetic nor distasteful, rather they deeply open one's mind to some of the truths of life that we find it more convenient to most often forget. Yet once considering them, we are not appalled, but somehow reconciled. For the thoughtful few, this is a book of revelation. I admit that I came upon it unawares, but I am very glad that I did so.
June 24, 2009
I wanted to like this book, really I did. Though it wasn't awful, it wasn't at all up to the level I was expecting to to be. Fisher has included several stories about aging here, each one meant to raise awareness of the latter years of our lives, or teach us a lesson about aging.
I thought most of it was more or less drivel. Not because I am in denial about getting older, but because the writing seemed rote and lifeless. Some of the stories were clearly supposed to be metaphoriacal, as well as fantastical, but as far as I'm concerned, they were just annoying.
The few stories I did enjoy did not make it worth reading the rest.
I thought most of it was more or less drivel. Not because I am in denial about getting older, but because the writing seemed rote and lifeless. Some of the stories were clearly supposed to be metaphoriacal, as well as fantastical, but as far as I'm concerned, they were just annoying.
The few stories I did enjoy did not make it worth reading the rest.
August 6, 2023
I really enjoyed this odd book of essays and stories by one of my favorite classic food writers. In this one, she tackles aging and death -- I would not have picked it up before turning sixty, but now it's great to hear someone with a very good mind exploring many facets of this Mystery.
February 16, 2024
What an odd collection of stories this is -- memoir pieces, short stories, ghost stories, travelogues, philosophy dips -- all bundled into the myriad of thoughts on Aging by the singular MFK Fisher.
Fisher's writing is sublime. You want to be her friend. You want her to invite you for a meal. You want her to knowingly wink at you across the table during coffee. I took my time with this book, reading only a story a day. I wanted her voice, her astute observations, and the scent of her company to linger in the air with me.
She addresses stages of aging, from the indignities, senility and fears, to the loss of social acceptability, secrets unwittingly revealed, and, of course, she addresses death too. Sometimes, beyond death. This seeming hodgepodge collection makes for a fifteen course meal and along with each course is wonderment. I don't think it's usual for us to think of old people or aging with wonderment. But Fisher does and she illustrates it beautifully to us.
There was one particular story I read twice, back to back, and then again next day. The story is about a woman preparing for a visit from a long absent daughter and grandson. It brought to mind my grandmother who had a passel of grown children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren who regularly visited her. As she aged and found preparing large meals in real time more difficult, she kept a stand-alone freezer filled with her homemade goodness at the ready. Not only did she live through the Depression as a farmer's wife in Oklahoma, but in her retirement was living on Social Security only. Thus, she was rightfully frugal. But that didn't mean frugality of taste. Rather, it meant she had on hand things like jars of apple butter made from the best of the season apples bought at their best price. It meant she had a special tin of saved bacon fat, that flavorful ingredient now anathema to many. And, of course, like any Grandmother worth her salt in those days, she could whip up fresh hot biscuits and gravy in 15 minutes flat. When a rare, young picky eater appeared in the genetic pool, she would sincerely offer a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, asking which direction the grandchild thought it should be halved. Oh, and cut the crusts, too? She would be only too happy to please them, worried about their hunger, not insulted.
But that was the 1960s and 70s. I think that eating at Grandma's is now less common for most of us and for so very many reasons. Does she still live in her home with her own kitchen? Can she expect a visit from those living far away more than every five or ten years? What about the Vegans? The Gluten-free? Lactose intolerant? Those with nut/soy/egg allergies? Or was there a family rift that won't heal? It is all so complicated.
In "A Kitchen Allegory," the piece I read three times, it is complicated too. Fisher's take, only a few pages long, is done with devastating compassion and accepting pathos.
The whole of Sister Age is like that. Even the pieces that I found odd, they add to Fisher's wide observations about aging and the aged. Together they are an exploration, an inquiry, a testament, or maybe a kind of education as she mentions in the Afterword. I wouldn't take a single story out.
I'm on a campaign to thin my bookshelves. This one is staying to be read again. God willing I myself live to even further old age.
Fisher's writing is sublime. You want to be her friend. You want her to invite you for a meal. You want her to knowingly wink at you across the table during coffee. I took my time with this book, reading only a story a day. I wanted her voice, her astute observations, and the scent of her company to linger in the air with me.
She addresses stages of aging, from the indignities, senility and fears, to the loss of social acceptability, secrets unwittingly revealed, and, of course, she addresses death too. Sometimes, beyond death. This seeming hodgepodge collection makes for a fifteen course meal and along with each course is wonderment. I don't think it's usual for us to think of old people or aging with wonderment. But Fisher does and she illustrates it beautifully to us.
There was one particular story I read twice, back to back, and then again next day. The story is about a woman preparing for a visit from a long absent daughter and grandson. It brought to mind my grandmother who had a passel of grown children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren who regularly visited her. As she aged and found preparing large meals in real time more difficult, she kept a stand-alone freezer filled with her homemade goodness at the ready. Not only did she live through the Depression as a farmer's wife in Oklahoma, but in her retirement was living on Social Security only. Thus, she was rightfully frugal. But that didn't mean frugality of taste. Rather, it meant she had on hand things like jars of apple butter made from the best of the season apples bought at their best price. It meant she had a special tin of saved bacon fat, that flavorful ingredient now anathema to many. And, of course, like any Grandmother worth her salt in those days, she could whip up fresh hot biscuits and gravy in 15 minutes flat. When a rare, young picky eater appeared in the genetic pool, she would sincerely offer a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, asking which direction the grandchild thought it should be halved. Oh, and cut the crusts, too? She would be only too happy to please them, worried about their hunger, not insulted.
But that was the 1960s and 70s. I think that eating at Grandma's is now less common for most of us and for so very many reasons. Does she still live in her home with her own kitchen? Can she expect a visit from those living far away more than every five or ten years? What about the Vegans? The Gluten-free? Lactose intolerant? Those with nut/soy/egg allergies? Or was there a family rift that won't heal? It is all so complicated.
In "A Kitchen Allegory," the piece I read three times, it is complicated too. Fisher's take, only a few pages long, is done with devastating compassion and accepting pathos.
The whole of Sister Age is like that. Even the pieces that I found odd, they add to Fisher's wide observations about aging and the aged. Together they are an exploration, an inquiry, a testament, or maybe a kind of education as she mentions in the Afterword. I wouldn't take a single story out.
I'm on a campaign to thin my bookshelves. This one is staying to be read again. God willing I myself live to even further old age.
September 21, 2021
This is an eclectic collection of stories, written by a food writer who rarely mentions food in the stories. Some of the stories are about her own life and some are fiction (I think). Some of them are weird. A couple, I didn't fully understand what happened. But they are all engaging and her descriptions are excellent. I particularly loved The Oldest Man and The Second Time around, both about her own experiences.
February 27, 2012
This title is inspired by St. Francis of Assisi who lives with some type of pain that plagues him through his life. M.F.K. Fisher writes about her observances through the years of those aging and the aging process. She is keen in her writing and sympathetic to the aged, even as she herself was young and not at that stage of life when much of her writing in these ten essays occurred.
Although I really love M.F.K. Fisher as a writer, and although I really enjoyed this book, and will probably reread it to get more out of it, I did not love it as much as I would normally love reading Ms. Fisher, nor as much as I expected to love it.
Perhaps I am not old enough yet to enjoy it as it should be enjoyed. :{}
Although I really love M.F.K. Fisher as a writer, and although I really enjoyed this book, and will probably reread it to get more out of it, I did not love it as much as I would normally love reading Ms. Fisher, nor as much as I expected to love it.
Perhaps I am not old enough yet to enjoy it as it should be enjoyed. :{}
October 11, 2015
I just couldn't connect with this voice of MFK Fisher. I kept trying, and stumbling & skinning my knee: made it about halfway through & it was just so dreary. I too want to love our Sister Age but it seems that Fisher's view of Sister & mine just don't intersect anywhere, and I cannot embrace her somewhat cold & painful take. I find it instructive that she kept the ugly leather picture shown on the cover, found in the flush her youth, which seemed to so inform her of age through her life. It is a tragic, depressing, ugly depiction. Not for me.
November 28, 2017
Fifteen stories of varying quality. Her writing is first rate, but I was only drawn in by about half the stories. My favorite were the two ghost stories. Her tone is unrelentingly melancholy, which may be due to most of the stories having to do with various stages of aging. Though I liked the book in general, it isn't one that I'll be inspired to read again.
March 10, 2011
Swell book. It's been on my shelf for years, waiting to be picked up. Great short stories, most with a sub-topic of "age" but don't let that stop you. M.F.K. Fisher is known for her writing about food, but she's way more than that! Hope you can find a copy.
November 29, 2014
Simply put...EXCELLENT. This was published in 1964, updated editions have appeared, but the basic writing is what captures me. I think MFK Fisher could have written 15 essays about trash collection & I would have loved that too. I recommend this read.
September 5, 2019
Finally, an MFK Fisher that isn't 100% about food! I really love the stories in here and it contains one I'd been searching for for years w/o success because I thought it was a novel, the superb ghost story "Lost, Strayed, Stolen." This is a book nearly anyone who reads for pleasure will enjoy.
March 28, 2023
I always love MFK Fisher, and this collection was no exception. My dear auntie sent me this book, perhaps a subtle preparation for the next few decades? Anyway, the ghost stories were a surprise and a delight. I'm not a short story fan in general, but these were nice to read here and there.
January 24, 2008
This book came into my life at a time I was dealing with the aging of my parents. Beautiful vignettes, done in Fisher's inimitable style. It is one I keep on my shelves.
August 1, 2008
maybe I should try this again but I just could not get through it before. I really liked MFK Fisher's other books: on food and her life.
January 12, 2022
She is an excellent writer. This is an odd and unsettling book. Each story should be consumed and digested prior to going to the next.
August 15, 2025
Fooled again by good marketing!
I bought this because I liked Fisher's food writing. And the back of the book promises stories about ageing that will illuminate the mind and comfort the soul (I'm paraphrasing: this is what I read between the lines that I would get). And in the intro Fisher explains that she has been collecting bits and bobs from which to write these stories about ageing, that she has been observing this for years and years and has many important thoughts.
But the stories are not so focused as all that. She describes food and settings well (or maybe I was just paying attention more closely to that because that's what I expected from her). But SHE is insufferable (which I knew she was, so my fault there). And some of the stories are silly. There are at least two with ghosts who didn't know they were ghosts. (They've been dead 11 months! What a twist!) Her writing is her typical mix of obliviousness and judgment of others, with some token compassion for cute or droll old people, especially if they feed her narrators or let them stay with them.
In the afterword, she returns to her supposed themes of ageing and how we do it badly. It's most lucid here, but it ends in a screed about how no one wants to care for ageing relatives because ew. She blames housing, single-family homes. It's not so much that she's wrong as that she's grumpy and out of touch. And isn't it interesting that she reaches these conclusions as she ages and becomes the out of touch one? She does say that people can/should resist the urge to be mean and settle into a cantankerous old age. She mentions how her mean old puritanical grandmother held court at home and they all relaxed once she died, but how NOW she realizes how much she got from that grandmother and how it's fine if old people are dictatorial as long as they help watch kids and give them picturesque remembrances to share in the future.
This little bit summed up a lot of her theory of ageing and isolation and what to do about it: she noted as a child that old women probably scratch themselves (a filthy habit!) because their skin is dry and they have no one to rub oil into their skin for relief. So she says, "I would have rubbed oil on my grandmother's dry old skin if she had asked me to, and now I would let a child ask to, if there were one nearby." (243) Big sigh before I continue. One, her grandmother, if she was as private and puritanical as she JUST SAID SHE WAS, would NEVER have asked for such a thing. So Fisher is off the hook there--grandma's fault for not asking. And two, now she would "let" some child rub her down, if only it would ask her for the privilege of touching old, dry skin. So she never asked HER grandmother as a child, but now a child should ask HER. Her grandmother never asked HER, which was wrong, but a child should ask HER, which is right. It changes the generation responsible for the asking, just so it never has to be Fisher, despite being the one who has noticed her whole life that old women need moisturizing. It reminds me of an older person in my life who often "lets" me check her mail, set her sprinklers, program her TV, grocery shop for her, find stuff on the internet for her, etc. She gives me the privilege of helping her without having to ask directly for the help she needs. And MFK Fisher is the same: she would never understand the issue with this (even worse: as a writer, she should understand the importance of words communication, and self-representation), nor would she see the contradiction in her own sentences above.
I bought this because I liked Fisher's food writing. And the back of the book promises stories about ageing that will illuminate the mind and comfort the soul (I'm paraphrasing: this is what I read between the lines that I would get). And in the intro Fisher explains that she has been collecting bits and bobs from which to write these stories about ageing, that she has been observing this for years and years and has many important thoughts.
But the stories are not so focused as all that. She describes food and settings well (or maybe I was just paying attention more closely to that because that's what I expected from her). But SHE is insufferable (which I knew she was, so my fault there). And some of the stories are silly. There are at least two with ghosts who didn't know they were ghosts. (They've been dead 11 months! What a twist!) Her writing is her typical mix of obliviousness and judgment of others, with some token compassion for cute or droll old people, especially if they feed her narrators or let them stay with them.
In the afterword, she returns to her supposed themes of ageing and how we do it badly. It's most lucid here, but it ends in a screed about how no one wants to care for ageing relatives because ew. She blames housing, single-family homes. It's not so much that she's wrong as that she's grumpy and out of touch. And isn't it interesting that she reaches these conclusions as she ages and becomes the out of touch one? She does say that people can/should resist the urge to be mean and settle into a cantankerous old age. She mentions how her mean old puritanical grandmother held court at home and they all relaxed once she died, but how NOW she realizes how much she got from that grandmother and how it's fine if old people are dictatorial as long as they help watch kids and give them picturesque remembrances to share in the future.
This little bit summed up a lot of her theory of ageing and isolation and what to do about it: she noted as a child that old women probably scratch themselves (a filthy habit!) because their skin is dry and they have no one to rub oil into their skin for relief. So she says, "I would have rubbed oil on my grandmother's dry old skin if she had asked me to, and now I would let a child ask to, if there were one nearby." (243) Big sigh before I continue. One, her grandmother, if she was as private and puritanical as she JUST SAID SHE WAS, would NEVER have asked for such a thing. So Fisher is off the hook there--grandma's fault for not asking. And two, now she would "let" some child rub her down, if only it would ask her for the privilege of touching old, dry skin. So she never asked HER grandmother as a child, but now a child should ask HER. Her grandmother never asked HER, which was wrong, but a child should ask HER, which is right. It changes the generation responsible for the asking, just so it never has to be Fisher, despite being the one who has noticed her whole life that old women need moisturizing. It reminds me of an older person in my life who often "lets" me check her mail, set her sprinklers, program her TV, grocery shop for her, find stuff on the internet for her, etc. She gives me the privilege of helping her without having to ask directly for the help she needs. And MFK Fisher is the same: she would never understand the issue with this (even worse: as a writer, she should understand the importance of words communication, and self-representation), nor would she see the contradiction in her own sentences above.
September 11, 2022
This is MFK Fisher reflecting on things other than food and eating. It's a collection of short stories, some authobiographical and some fictional, all of them incorporating some aspect of what it means to grow old and inspired by her desire to demonstrate the "extraordinary resilience of the old". The foreword is the story of how, after collecting notes and ideas for this collection over many years, she was finally compelled to do it after discovering an old portrait in a junk shop in Zurich which depicted an ugly, moustached woman called Ursula Von Ott. The portrait, painted in 1808 by the woman's son became the lodestar for the project. It hung above her desk in many places she lived where the "remote, monkey-sad eyes of the old woman" reminded her of the book she wanted to write.
You don't have to be old to appreciate this lyrical and vivid writing from a woman of whom W.H. Auden once said "I do not know anyone in the United States today who writers better prose".
You don't have to be old to appreciate this lyrical and vivid writing from a woman of whom W.H. Auden once said "I do not know anyone in the United States today who writers better prose".
July 30, 2025
"In these fifteen remarkable stories, M.F.K. Fisher, one of the most admired writers of our time. embraces age as St. Francis welcomed Brother Pain. With a saint to guide us, she writes in her Foreword, perhaps we can accept in a loving way the inevitable visits of a possibly nagging harpy like Sister Age.' But in the stories, it is the human strength in the unavoidable encounter with the end of life that Mrs. Fisher dramatizes so powerfully. Other themes -- the importance of witnessing death, the marvelous resilience of the old, the passing of vanity -- are all explored with insight, sympathy and, often, a sly wit."
~~back cover
Old age is a theme I'm much interested in as I age, so you would think I would have dived into this book head first and never come our. But just the opposite -- I couldn't connect with the author's style, not the subjects of her stories. I admit, I only read to page 86 before giving up, but life is too short to wade through a book I'm not enjoying.
~~back cover
Old age is a theme I'm much interested in as I age, so you would think I would have dived into this book head first and never come our. But just the opposite -- I couldn't connect with the author's style, not the subjects of her stories. I admit, I only read to page 86 before giving up, but life is too short to wade through a book I'm not enjoying.
May 27, 2023
Only initially surprising that she begins a reflection on aging with contemplation of her youth. Of the three pieces I’ve yet read -- ranging from memoir-ish meandering to straight fiction -- each come from the same deep well of a woman with years of experience behind her putting down thoughts into prose. As such, genre doesn’t quite matter, and the effect is uniform: what she's writing, as she notes early on, are visions of the way in which we all "take notes on aging" as we move through our lives. The final of the three, then, a quick consideration of a young housewife who unashamedly lets an older man feel her up, might not seem to fit, although it does especially well in retrospect, given her exploration of what it means for an aging woman to elicit desire (or not). Quite interested in the remaining, whenever that is I'll get back to them.
May 8, 2020
I had originally picked up Sister Age as I had heard many kind words about Fisher ability as a food writer. While I did see some of these aspects in her writing I was mildly disappointed about the topic. Overall I enjoyed the story though I felt the beginning was a bit slow. A few stories (such as the two ghosts stories) I found fantastic but others (such as the much too long remembrance of a french boarding house) while well written I found to drag on to the point of dullness. Overall the Memoir had more great stories then bad but there was definitely moments where I had tired of the story. As a first introduction I enjoyed M.F.K Fishers voice and style so I'm definitely interested in looking into the rest of her work.
December 2, 2024
What a completely bizarre book! I love M. F. K. Fisher, like, a LOT, and I was more than happy to read this collection, but it surely is a strange combination of stories, especially because it combines fiction and nonfiction UNMARKED AS SUCH. It is jarring to have to figure out whether you are reading a short story or a personal recollection, though it does become clear eventually with each piecce.
I hadn't even known that MFKF wrote fiction, and it interested me to read it. In hindsight it's clear why she is remembered as a writer of personal nonfiction. It isn't that her short stories are bad, they're not, but they are musty with age and just don't sing, while her first-person pieces are basically untarnished.
I hadn't even known that MFKF wrote fiction, and it interested me to read it. In hindsight it's clear why she is remembered as a writer of personal nonfiction. It isn't that her short stories are bad, they're not, but they are musty with age and just don't sing, while her first-person pieces are basically untarnished.
July 21, 2019
I am a huge fan of her gastronomic writing. and her basic skill with prose is undeniable, but overall, these stories disappointed me. I don't regret reading them on vacation, and I did finish the book, minus the second half of one of the longer, later selections, and the portraits of solitude and loss often relieved by death felt like they had potential. But her fiction ultimately felt distant and contrived and dated. I think the emotional reticence that puts other ideas and vivid sensory experiences first in her nonfiction, does not serve her here. She is best when speaking directly, as herself, in the prologue and foreword.
September 29, 2024
Since this is a collection of writings, some fiction, some more or less non, it's uneven.
As I age, I'm finally in search of others who have gone before, to guide me. I have become more aware of my limitations and fragility, and am guarding it, perhaps too much. The future will hold more physical and financial restrictions, which I want to prepare for mentally and otherwise. Also, while I continue to read and enjoy younger authors and protagonists, I want to find at least some peers in a similar stage of life that I can relate to. So that's why I read this book. I've always enjoyed Fisher's writing style.
As I age, I'm finally in search of others who have gone before, to guide me. I have become more aware of my limitations and fragility, and am guarding it, perhaps too much. The future will hold more physical and financial restrictions, which I want to prepare for mentally and otherwise. Also, while I continue to read and enjoy younger authors and protagonists, I want to find at least some peers in a similar stage of life that I can relate to. So that's why I read this book. I've always enjoyed Fisher's writing style.
April 24, 2020
A pleasant olio of short stories and memoirs, including of course the little bit of nonchanlant scandal I've come to expect from the lovely Mary Frances. My favorites were the memoirs: Answer in the Affirmative about a rug salesman, the Second Time Around about her Parisian landlady, the Oldest Man about two old men in the mountains of southern France.
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October 3, 2022A collection of stories presenting different aspects of the experience of growing old, weak, alone and dying in modern times. Fisher is clear eyed and clear in her writing. I think the question at the core of all her writing was how to live well. The book seems to me an attempt to develop a perspective to help to live well in old age.
June 14, 2024
A series of short stories centering on aged people in the life of Ms. Fisher. Some of the stories were surprising, others quite boring. I wouldn't read this one again though I do love her writing on gastronomy.
June 9, 2017
Not what I expected but still some very interesting stories in this collection. Glad I read through all of them.
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