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| Gail Sheehy | |
Gail Sheehy, "the journalist, commentator and pop sociologist whose bestselling book Passages helped millions navigate their lives from early adulthood to middle age and beyond," died August 24, the Associated Press reported. She was 83. Published in 1976, Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life "immediately caught on with a generation torn by the cultural revolution of the time, sorting through mid-life struggles, marital problems, changing gender roles and questions about identity."
"It occurred to me that what Gesell and Spock did for children hadn't been done for us adults," Sheehy wrote. "It's far easier to study adolescents and aging people. Both groups are in institutions (schools or rest homes) where they make captive subjects. The rest of us are out there in the mainstream of a spinning and distracted society, trying to make some sense of our one and only voyage through its ambiguities."
While Passages "helped set off a conversation that lasted for decades," Sheehy was criticized for overgeneralizing and focusing too closely on affluent professionals, the AP wrote, adding that the author "acknowledged shortcomings, notably that there was much to say about life after age 50." Her subsequent books included Silent Passage: Menopause; New Passages: Mapping Your Life Across Time; Understanding Men's Passages: Discovering the New Map of Men's Lives; Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence; and a 2014 memoir, Daring: My Passages.
The New York Times noted that Sheehy, who was "a lively participant in New York’s literary scene and a practitioner of creative nonfiction, studied anthropology with Margaret Mead. She applied those skills to explore the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s and to gain psychological insights into the newsmakers she profiled.... She was a star writer at New York magazine and later married its founder, Clay Felker, who encouraged her to write 'big' stories."
Sheehy's honors included the National Magazine Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and a citation from the American Psychological Association. A Library of Congress survey named Passages one of the 10 most influential books of modern times.
In a 2016 commencement speech at her alma mater, the University of Vermont, she said, "Whenever you hear about a great cultural phenomenon--a revolution, an assassination, a notorious trial, an attack on the country--drop everything. Get on a bus or train or plane and go there, stand at the edge of the abyss, and look down into it. You will see a culture turned inside out and revealed in a raw state."