Naked on the Page: The Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife by Jane Ganahl

From the Publisher

The jungle of midlife dating has found an intrepid new explorer in Jane Ganahl. Beginning with the launch of her San Francisco Chronicle column, "Single Minded," and ending with her fiftieth birthday, Naked on the Page covers one frenzied year in a smart, social, but definitely middle-aged woman's life. It's a year of changes, both social and professional, complicated by hormonal upheaval, her father's declining health, and the realization that after a life filled with too many men to count, she may be single for the rest of it!

Ganahl traces her path of self-discovery as she tries to reconcile her midlife body with her teenage heart, navigate her claustrophobic social circle, and let her daughter live her own life. On top of it all, Ganahl has to manage being thrust into the public eye when her very successful new column exposes her life to the world.

Frank and funny, sassy and self-aware, Naked on the Page is a tale of one woman's roller coaster ride through middle-aged dating that will appeal to anyone who has ever loved or loathed being single.

Publishers Weekly

Ganahl, a 49-year-old San Francisco Chroniclecolumnist, had almost everything a woman could want: financial stability, a flourishing career, an adoring daughter and the kind of sparkling social life even Dorothy Parker would envy. What she didn't have, though, was a boyfriend—and as she looked down the barrel of middle age, when every man she knew was either married, interested only in (much) younger women or otherwise unacceptable, this one-time male-magnet wondered if anyone would ever look at her lustfully again. Ganahl's writing is sassy, fiery (the prose equivalent of her red hair and love of rock and roll), and many readers will nod in amused sympathy as she recounts her disastrous forays into the world of online dating or laments the difficulty of looking sexy in a sensible heel. But the book isn't all self-deprecating humor. Reeling from the one-two punch of her mother's and sister's deaths and struggling to accept her daughter's increasing independence, Ganahl tackles the bigger issues as well. Ganahl may be occasionally, infuriatingly self-defeating, but more often she's pluck and charm personified. Readers, meanwhile, will enjoy Ganahl's romantic portrayal of her beloved San Francisco—a character as alive and fully developed as any in the book. (Feb.)

Kirkus Reviews

Carrie Bradshaw meets the AARP in this mediocre meta-memoir. Shortly before her 50th birthday, music journalist Ganahl was asked to write a column for the San Francisco Chronicle about being single and middle-aged. Here, we read about the dates that she wrote about for the paper; snippets of the actual column; some of the emails she received in response to the column; about the dates she decided not to chronicle in the Chronicle. In short, this is a tedious, repetitive and sophomoric book. Ganahl's advanced age-advanced, that is, for a swinging singleton tell-all-seems only to have given her wrinkles. What the years haven't imparted is wisdom. To wit her on-again off-again affair with a jazz musician named Lenny. Over and over, he dallies with her, and still Ganahl keeps going back for more; the penultimate page finds her pathetically leaving him asleep in a hotel as she slinks off alone to her 50th birthday party. It's hard to know if she's being serious or satirical when she exclaims things like, "But he shared his feelings with me! It was like a miracle. At this moment, I can almost believe this is the beginning of a new chapter for us. One that might actually lead to love." One of the few threads that makes this book bearable is Ganahl's depiction of her charming 20-something daughter, Erin, who is a paragon of filial devotion. (At the same time, Erin's astute common-sense underscores her mother's lack of insight.) Ganahl also tells some truly funny stories about horrible dates: There's the lawyer from Louisiana who flew to California to meet Ganahl after reading her column, only to get plastered halfway through their date, and the environmental activist who confesses love to Ganahlwhile under the influence of Ecstasy. But readers will cringe a lot more than they'll chuckle. Embarrassing.

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