Bookworm, no. 151
Tom Hawthorn reviews Michelle Pannor Silver’s “Aging with Agility.” Sophia Ohler on Sadie McCarney’s “The Bright Afters.” Results from the National Magazine Awards. Inside the June issue.
Aging with Agility: How Elite Athletes and Ordinary Folks Embrace Exercise with Age
Michelle Pannor Silver
Columbia University Press
248 pages, hardcover, softcover, and ebook
In less than two centuries, human life expectancy has more than doubled. Living longer has changed our perceptions around aging, well-being, and especially exercise habits. While the development of physical education dates back to the Renaissance, it was after the world wars—when athleticism was seen as a patriotic duty—that schools in many countries adopted universal health care and exercise programs. Today, government cutbacks have forced “a shift toward the privatization of fitness.”
In Aging with Agility, the University of Toronto professor Michelle Pannor Silver gathers almost a decade of interviews to provide an intimate and insightful look at how relationships with our bodies change as we get older. Researchers and policymakers are now more likely to frame aging as “a time to prioritize quality of life” rather than as a decline. Silver profiles former athletes and coaches, as well as a handful of ordinary people, to see if that framing fits.
Consider Yvonne, a bedridden senior whose lifestyle of neglect and indulgence is responsible for her financial and physical dependence, at least according to her daughter. “Exercise is not for the poor,” Yvonne says. Another surprisingly sedentary character is Max, a former professional hockey player whose career ended with a knee injury, followed by a period of drug use, binge drinking, and sexual addiction. In contrast, Anand, who was born in India in the 1930s, contracted polio as a boy. When he was left with one leg shorter than the other, his adoptive British father regarded him as damaged goods. Anand began exercising to gain parental approval, finding then and now that it allows him to exert control over his sometimes unwilling body. Across these varied experiences, Aging with Agility encourages readers to consider the state of our own ever-less-nimble bodies—and how we might better care for them.
—Tom Hawthorn
The Bright Afters
Sadie McCarney
ECW Press
80 pages, softcover and ebook
After stabbing his childhood friend in the bathroom with a drumstick, Derek “can feel the rage flow out of me like music.” What do young people do with anger? And how does anyone process the tragicomedy that is high school? These intertwined questions drive The Bright Afters.
Sadie McCarney’s novel-in-poems consists of a series of monologues from West Nowhere, Nova Scotia. While the surviving victim, Colton, speaks from his hospital bed, his best friend, Annie, reflects on better times, when they “play acted games most teens had grown out of” and escaped to their “queer haven in the woods.” Though we hear from a variety of those affected by the event, including a custodian who can’t shake the “messy signature of pain” he witnessed, the book is largely focused on what it means to come of age in a small town.
With each poem titled after a musical—such as Wicked and Fun Home—McCarney considers how theatre can help kids cope with the present while imagining alternative futures. The regional vernacular she uses creates a sense of intimacy and confidence. With it, these teenagers thoughtfully reflect on their lives, though some of them assume a performative, sometimes unbelievable affect, which may be expected given their age. It’s difficult to take Colton’s cringey insights seriously, for example, especially when he attends his first Pride parade in Halifax: “I pick up a free / condom, twiddle it between my / fingers, / thinking I could bleed / in that high school bathroom / forever.” Still, McCarney successfully recalls (and rightly dramatizes) the agonies of adolescence, along with the challenge of confronting what comes after.
—Sophia Ohler
Look, Mom!
At last Friday’s National Magazine Awards in Toronto, Raymond Biesinger won gold for his work on our June 2025 cover.
Jury members praised his bookmobile parade: “Such a joy to look at. Every vehicle is clearly researched, every detail feels intentional. The limited colour palette and the winding road connecting mobile libraries from around the world make it both a beautiful piece of illustration and a genuine celebration of reading culture.” Congratulations, Raymond!
Inside the June Issue
“At times she addresses her prosthetics directly…Often the process of writing about something gives it an inherent sense of value, but there is no valorization or idealization here.” Harriet Alida Lye tackles Therese Estacion’s fierce Jelly, Baby: Essays on Disability and Vulnerability.
David Venn investigates the ATM-like fiction machines popping up around the globe.
“A leader of Montreal’s anglophone literary community, Joel Yanofsky held an undeniable place. And he is irreplaceable.” David Staines reviews an incomparable critic’s posthumous memoir.
And much more!