The Silent Passage

New York: Random House, 1992. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. How are women of the baby-boomer generation handling the "M word," the chan ge whose name they dare not speak? According to Sheehy's short report (expa nded from her 1991 Vanity Fair article), many are utterly unprepared. The a uthor ( Pathfinder ), who has been negotiating this passage herself, talks to doctors, nutritionists and a cross-section of women, examining both her own vacillation over estrogen replacement therapy and the more general ques tions of its side effects. We also hear from women who, having started fami lies late in life, are catapulted from first babies to first hot flashes , and from such celebrities as Candice Bergen and Lesley Ann Warren. There ar e many frenetic and some encouraging menopause war stories here, but few ac counts from women who experienced little difficulty during these years. She ehy includes discussion of herbal remedies, exercise and dietary defenses a gainst osteoporosis. While remaining somewhat inconclusive, her review of t his stage of life for women in anti-aging America is detailed and sympathet ic.