Optics: A Novel About Women and Work and Midlife Muddles

Nobody prepared Kris Wright and her friends for the toughest trial of adulthood: unemployment after age fifty.

All her life, Kris assumed that working hard and doing the right thing would ensure a full and satisfying career. When she unexpectedly loses her job as marketing director for Klassik Eyewear, she's forced to reexamine those assumptions, reinvent herself, and regain control of her identity.

Kris quickly learns that unemployment is a scary state for a middle-aged woman. Job postings all seem written for younger candidates. Networking proves a dead end. Suddenly she no longer feels herself a role model for her college senior daughter or an equal partner in her marriage. For the first time ever she's not in control—of her career or her emotions. Meanwhile, a midlife crisis is threatening most of her closest friends, known as the G7.

In this tightly written coming-of-middle-age novel set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, female friendships and changing family dynamics provide the backdrop for a second act no one—least of all Kris—anticipated.

While providing a cautionary tale about the perils facing midlife women in the job market, this feel-good career reinvention novel serves up realism with a side of humor and a sliver of revenge. Fans of Allison Pearson's How Hard Can It Be? will enjoy this examination of the multiple challenges facing women determined to prove that age should never be a job disqualification.