This book would be a good resource for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses on qualitative research in social gerontology. In three sections, the book covers theory, method and specific applications of narrative gerontology (although these sections are less apparent in the actual text). The chapters are short (about 13 pages each) and each is followed by suggestions for further readings. Two appendices contain the transcripts of face-to-face interviews, one including a letter by a participant, and these documents provide examples to which reference is often made in the text.
As with most fields of enquiry in gerontology, narrative gerontology is inherently multi-disciplinary. Indeed, the book is a sort of demonstration case of how gerontology borrows theory and methods from existing disciplines and, by concentrating designedly on ageing and ageing processes, generates methodological advances, empirical results and new theory that are uniquely available only from the standpoint of ageing. Thus, in the second chapter, the author notes that there are currently at least two ways of thinking about gerontology: as either ‘an area of interest for someone within an established discipline’ or ‘an epistemological standpoint’ (p. 23). She goes on to devote nine pages to narrative research in anthropology, the humanities, medicine, nursing, psychology and psychiatry, public policy, social work, sociolinguistics and sociology – noting where there is research in these fields devoted specifically to narrative and ageing (in some there seems to be none). The former view – gerontology as an area of interest within an established discipline – seems to be where the majority of the action is, because the latter view – gerontology as ‘an epistemological standpoint’ – merits one paragraph, the upshot of which is ‘Narratives offer a site of knowledge, a standpoint from which to consider later life’ (p. 32). Throughout the book the author works from both perspectives, but in the end it is the epistemological standpoint that grounds what is specifically gerontological about narrative gerontology.
The first section of the book lays out the territory by situating narrative research in gerontology and by summarising material on narrative in the humanities and social sciences, particularly regarding the relation of narrative to self and identity, and narrative as a social and linguistic accomplishment. Each of these topics – narrative, self, identity, and language and discourse – is a major field of enquiry with vast, multi-disciplinary literatures, and so the short chapters here must take positions without the kind of nuance that would satisfy experts in these fields. Further, the epistemological standpoint seems to be less operative in this section. For instance, in the discussion of narrative and identity in Chapter 3, one might expect a longer discussion about identity and ageing, but there is only a (quite compelling) quote from Margaret Gullette (Reference Gullette2004) on the absence of ageing as a topic in the wider literature on identity, but surprisingly little development of that idea here.
The strongest sections of the book concern methods and applications, where the author draws on her considerable experience in conducting, analysing and publishing narrative research in gerontology. Again, the author draws on the abundant development of narrative methods in the supporting literature and skilfully weaves in themes specific to ageing. Thus, on the one hand, Chapters 9 and 10 provide very practical, hands-on advice for analysing oral and textual narratives via analytic frameworks (nicely laid out in tabular format) that step the analyst through the first and subsequent readings of raw transcript data or written materials. These frameworks include interpretive questions concerning the interlocutors (characteristics, roles, purposes), the narrative context (circumstances, setting) and the text itself (what-is-said, what-is-not-said, etc.). Such advice is common in the methods literature, and the author cites the relevant source. On the other hand, speaking to the epistemological standpoint, the author trains a specifically gerontological gaze on narrative analysis in Chapter 7, where she discusses how older narrators take up, negotiate and contest the ‘master narratives’ of ageing and of decline and disability. This leads to reflections on the very act of narrating as a way of re-asserting moral agency in the world over against cultural scripts about decrements in function and social exclusion. The subheading is intriguingly entitled: ‘Whose Story Is It?’
Some of the most illuminative material in the book is found in the applications section, in chapters where the author discusses reminiscence and life review, in which older adults engage in purposeful recall and ‘storying’ of their lives, and writing groups in which older adults write and share their narrative productions or collaborate on common narrative projects. Again, there is keen advice here for narrative researchers. For instance, the author provides a two-page table in Chapter 13, ‘Facilitating Group Work with Older Adults', that lays out a seven-week group programme for a ‘Share Your Life Story’ group.
In sum, the book offers valuable and eminently practical advice for conducting research in narrative gerontology. It rounds out a nice trilogy of book-length treatments that includes two edited volumes that present some of the more fascinating findings in the field. These are the seminal Narrative Gerontology: Theory, Research, and Practice, edited by Kenyon, Clark and de Vries (Reference Kenyon, Clark and de Vries2001) and the more recent Storying Later Life: Issues, Investigations, and Interventions in Narrative Gerontology, edited by Kenyon, Bohlmeijer and Randall (Reference Kenyon, Bohlmeijer and Randall2011).
