New Yorker Fiction Review #183: "Ladies' Lunch" by Lore Segal

Review of a short story from the Feb. 27, 2017 issue of The New Yorker...

There's no way around it: getting old sucks. And it really sucks when someone gets so old that they lose their independence, as does the main character "Lotte" in this short story by Lore Segal.

It's an old story: a senior citizen begins to lose more and more of their mobility and their mental faculties, until their children (if they are lucky enough to have any) start to exert pressure to move them out of their residence into the old folks' home. The senior citizen resents this and resists this until finally something happens -- some kind of accident -- and finally they lose their right to resist.

Sadly there is almost no way around this end, for those of us who are fortunate enough to even grow old enough to lose our independence. The story has the same arch (and certainly the same end), but the details differ and they will always be a bit heart-rending.

There was nothing particularly bad or off-putting about this story, but it made me uncomfortable for some reason. Perhaps it was my frame of mind at the time, perhaps it is the recognition of my own and my parents' mortality looking at me in the face, or a reminder of watching my grandparents face a similar saga. I don't know. But I will not be revisiting this story for any reason, until I have to be a player in it myself.