I hadn’t heard of Terry McMillan, and I doubt if I would have come across her book ‘It’s not all Downhill from here’ under normal circumstances. But it was allocated as the January read for the local book group I belong to. I tried to order it months ago from an online site but unfortunately the order got lost, so as time was running out, I bought a Kindle version and read it over the weekend.
The writing style took a little while to feel natural. The book is narrated in a very informal way by a 68-year-old black American woman called Loretha who seems a bit controlling. She’s happily married to Carl, who is her third husband and is estranged from her forty-year-old daughter. Her son is married with twin daughters but lives in Japan. She has an elderly mother who lives in a care home and a granddaughter whom she adores. Oh, and a dog who’s rather getting along in years. She refers to these important folk in her life in a somewhat rambling way; not quite stream-of-consciousness, but almost.
Right at the start of the book her concern is that she doesn’t want a surprise party for her birthday. It feels quite a trivial opening, although the theme of celebrating and birthdays recurs through the book. And it didn’t prepare me for a shock that occurs soon after the start of the book, which rather changes the course of Loretha’s life.
A lot of issues come up in this book which is really about a small group of women who have been friends for over fifty years, and who have dinner at each other’s houses each month - often accompanied by partners, but these vary. One of them is single, one is separated from her husband, one is widowed but determined to start dating again. They’re all in their late sixties, and are very involved in each other’s lives, speaking their minds - sometimes rather brutally - and supporting each other in any way they can.
The various subplots gradually come together and as I progressed through the book I found myself more interested in Loretha’s family than her friends. There are some quite important issues that come up: depression in various forms, the beginnings of dementia, the problems of medical insurance (or lack of it) in the United States, and more.
There’s an ‘epigram’ at the beginning of the book which says, ‘You cannot go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending’. And in essence, that’s what the overall theme of the book is about. I very much liked that the focus is on quite lively women who are a few years older than I am, although a tad disturbed that so many of them have ongoing medical or other health issues. I also liked the fact that God is an important part of their lives; one of the women is a bit of a religious fundamentalist and that’s somewhat annoying, but the rest of them treat God as an everyday part of their lives.
The culture is so far removed from anything I’m familiar with that this felt a bit like escapism - not because the women are of African descent, but because they’re well-off Americans, living the kind of lifestyle that I can only imagine from having seen films, and with apparently endless resources of wealth. Loretha is very generous but when she keeps depositing large sums in a dodgy relative’s bank, I found her rather frustrating. Still, it’s a sign of good characterisation when a fictional person gets under the skin, and she didn’t seem to miss the sums she was shelling out.
There’s more than one shock in the book; at one point I was concerned it was going to end up rather depressing. But thankfully lots of ends are nicely tied together at the end, and there’s a feel-good conclusion, albeit perhaps a tad too neatly done. I don't mind that at all, and appreciated the positive outlook shown for older protagonists than are usually portrayed in fiction.
Most of us at the book group liked the book overall, and acknowledged that it was both educational and thought-provoking, while also quite an easy read. I don’t know that I’d particularly recommend it, or look for anything else by this author, but I’m glad I read it.
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