Love, Again is a non-fiction book by Eve Pell that discusses what happens when people find love late in life. Pell herself fell in love at the age of 68 with a 78-year-old man. After writing about the romance for The New York Times, she got so many letters that she decided to interview other couples and make it a full-length book. Couples talk about the rewards and challenges of old-age romance with tenderness (“My heart is safe”) and enthusiasm (“Only age-related physical restrictions restrict our sexual imagination”).

Pell uses the word “old” throughout the book: ”

I don’t think it’s a bad word. It doesn’t have to mean decline and feebleness, and some things can actually get better with age…Senior sounds tepid; older sounds like a way to soften old; elderly sounds fragile. Old is just a fact of life-if we are lucky to live long enough, it’s what we become.

The couples interviewed include one gay couple and one lesbian couple, a black couple, and two multi-ethnic couples. Most are politically liberal, partly because of selection bias but also because of an interesting trend:

The Harvard study found that aging liberal men have way more sex than their conservative counterparts, and so presumably enjoy more late-in-life relationships. Political ideology has no bearing on overall life satisfaction, the study found, but the most conservative men on average shut down their sex lives at around 68 while the most liberal men have healthy sex lives well into their 80s.

The couples have a variety of meet cute stories. Some met online, some were set up by friends, and some met through shared activities. My favorite meet-cute story was that of Dusty and Dorothy. Dorothy was something of a serial monogamist and her friends challenged her to stay single for a year. Dusty had been happily single for about five years, and mutual friends introduced them thinking that Dusty could show Dorothy how to enjoy the single life. That plan backfired spectacularly as the two fell madly in love and got married.

Couples talk about health challenges and challenges with adult children (some are thrilled about the romances while others are afraid the interloper is out to cheat their parent, or disrespect the memory of a deceased spouse). A common problem is where to live – so many old-age couples are widowers, and their houses clearly still “belong” to the deceased spouse. A lot of couples move to a new house to start fresh, or practice LAT (Living Alone Together), in which they are a committed couple but live in separate residences. They talk about falling in love (still giddy), negotiating living arrangements (much harder than when you are young and your possessions consist of a box of ramen and an old futon) and sex (still important, still fun).

These couples give a lot of advice about love, some contradictory, but one thing comes up over and over again. When young couples get together, they have tons of energy, but they lack patience and acceptance. When you meet a person who is eighty, and you are seventy-nine, you know who you are, and you know that your partner is who he or she is. What you see is what you get. You will, of course, compromise in your relationship, but no one is going to change anyone else. For the relationship to work at all, there has to be unconditional acceptance. That’s true in every relationship, but older people (at least, the ones in this book) seem to grasp the concept and the practice much more easily than younger couples.

I loved this book. I thought it was interesting, inspiring, and moving, and often very funny. It challenges stereotypes about old age and it expresses the importance of resilience and optimism. Above all, I thought it had a lot of lessons that younger couples could use: accept your partner for who they are (and don’t settle for a relationship you don’t want), consciously work on your relationship every day, never take your relationship for granted, and enjoy affectionate touch with cuddles and kisses as well as with sex. Here are the beautiful closing paragraphs:

Again and again, in interview after interview as couples told their stories, the path to happiness began with self-knowledge. Over the years, through trial and error and success, sometimes with therapy or spiritual practice or just with understanding and the passage of time, people like me became aware of who we truly are. Like Dorothy and Dusty, for example, I could stop living up to what I thought I ought to be; like Jack and Aggie, I could connect with my deep desires and follow them. Like Winnie and Pat, I could learn to accept and love myself and others, flaws and all. Like Carole and Steven, I could learn and move on from past misjudgments.   Like Vilma and Joao, I could rejoice in finding new passion.

Perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned from the couples I met is this: Trust yourself. Whatever your age, you have the right to live as fully as you can, as fully as you want to.