A Menopausal Memoir: Letters from Another Climate

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The only extended, first-person narrative about menopause, A Menopausal Memoir: Letters from Another Climate explores the connection between menopause, mourning, and memory through nine fictional letters written to different addressees. The letters explain the authors own experience of having a hysterectomy during surgery for endometriosis and being thrown into instant menopause. Herrmann expresses her experiences differently in each letter based on the recipients gender, sexual identity, and age, revealing the complexities of accepting menopause. Psychotherapists, psychologists, physicians, medical students, academics, and those interested in womens health and womens studies will receive insight into one womans experience and will learn how our bodies mold our sexual identity and shape many aspects of our lives.Writing these letters from the point of view of a scholar engaged in personal narrative but not in the familiar narrative of a woman married with children, Herrmann examines her journey of loss, recovery, and healing through feminist theory. The letters in A Menopausal Memoir reveal many other issues, including: the relationship between the female body and the meanings attached to itthe different ways women tell their stories about difficult experiencesnegotiating the relationship between growing older and sexual identitythe bodys response to the loss of organs that form/inform its historythe connection between body, identity, and diseaseA highly personal, yet theoretical, approach to the experience of menopause, A Menopausal Memoir explores how changes in the body affect your sexual identity, your relationships, and your feelings as a woman.