Menopause, Sisterhood, and Tennis

Like many women of the baby-boom generation, Alice Wilson-Fried found the specter of menopause looming over her as a sinister figure, come to take her womanhood, her mind, her energy, and her enthusiasm for life. Surrounded by popular representations of aging as a devastating illness to be fought against with all one's strength, and seeing in medical literature the hormonal changes of menopause likened to a mental illness, she withered in despair. And then a miraculous power seized her: Tennis. . . and the friendship and support of the women with whom she played. She'd never played tennis--much less any sport--but in the latter half of her life, the struggle to learn tennis became, in part, a quest to face the challenges of menopause and aging head-on, with determination, grit, and grace. In Menopause, Sisterhood, and Tennis, Wilson-Fried offers the powerful story of one woman's tangled journey through menopause. Based upon her own experience, and steeped in the rich Southern humor of her mother and grandmother, this guide to surviving "The Change" unveils the mystery of menopause, laying bare the physiological, psychological, and emotional transformations menopause brings to women's lives. In giving the story of her own experience and research, Wilson-Fried offers to women everywhere a laywoman's guide to the medical understanding of menopause, offering personal "epiphanies" about why diet, exercise, mental activity, and good humor are necessary for good health during menopause--and even more important, encouragement, motivation, and advice for women who despair of ever being able to implement these strategies into daily life.