Alicia H. Munnell
The founding director of Boston College's Center for Retirement Research, and one of the most influential voices on retirement policy, reflects on nearly three decades at BC.
BOOKS
The Cabernet Club
A novel toast to women aging vibrantly.
Winter 2025
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It’s never too late to write the next great chapter in your life. That’s the bright, bullish mentality that motivated Margie Zable Fisher ’89, a former finance major, to close her public relations firm in 2019 and pursue a new career as a full-time writer at age fifty. In doing so, Fisher, whose writing frequently focuses on what she calls “empowered aging,” followed in the footsteps of the mother she cherished, Rona S. Zable, an author and longtime editor of a newspaper for seniors.
Appropriately, “second acts” is also the central theme of The Cabernet Club, the novel Fisher coauthored as a final promise to her mother. Before she died, Fisher’s mother had already drafted the book and its storyline about Debbie, a New England divorcée seeking a fresh start and new friends as a Florida retiree. Fisher vowed to finish the novel. “It gave me a way to honor her and helped me grieve,” said Fisher, who added several subplots and expanded the cast of colorful wine-sipping characters to speak to the importance of developing sisterly bonds at any age. The humorous and heartfelt result is, as Fisher described it, “a cross between Schitt’s Creek and The Golden Girls.”
What’s more, it’s the beginning of an entire series: Fisher has already outlined at least two more installments that follow the adventures of these wine-loving ladies in their quirky condo community and beyond. The author, who fondly remembers sharing a glass with her mother every Sunday, hopes The Cabernet Club will offer women ageless inspiration: “We wanted to show you can have a great life as an older person.” ◽
Briefly
Shadows into Light: A Generation of Former Child Soldiers Comes
of Age by Theresa S. Betancourt, Salem Professor in Global Practice at the BC School of Social Work
The culmination of a twenty-plus-year study of more than five hundred boys and girls forced to fight in the Sierra Leone Civil War, Shadows unpacks the weighty research and insights gleaned by Betancourt, director of the Research Program on Children and Adversity, and her collaborators in West Africa. In addition to heartbreaking stories of personal trauma, it also details surprising and heartening data that shows healing is possible for child soldiers who receive proper social support in their postwar environments.
Theology of Horror: The Hidden Depths of Popular Films by Ryan Duns, SJ, ’14, MCGS’18
Refuting the stereotype that horror films are lowbrow entertainment, Duns argues that the movies that scare us can also offer profound philosophical insights. Whether analyzing the metaphysical questions raised by The Blair Witch Project or exploring how The Texas Chain Saw Massacre inspires fear in its audience through godless nihilism, Duns illustrates how movies that depict the scary, supernatural, and surreal can also be inherently spiritual.
Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics by David A. Hopkins, BC associate professor of political science, and Matt Grossmann
In this sequel to their 2016 book Asymmetric Politics, Hopkins and Grossmann, a Michigan State University political science professor, examine how, over the last two decades, those who hold college degrees have become more likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans. The book suggests that the association of Democrats with higher education has increasingly alienated White Americans without diplomas, resulting in a widening political gap that has transformed American society.
Adventures in Community Science: Notes from the Field and a How-To Guide for Saving Species and Protecting Biodiversity by Ron Smith ’92
This illustrated book by Smith, a science teacher of thirty years, educates children about a variety of animals and their habitats, from shorebirds to spiders. It’s also filled with ideas for entertaining outdoor activities that will help young naturalists learn how to observe, protect, and collect data on different species in the wild.
Mothering in the Time of Coronavirus by Amy Lutz ’94, Sujung (Crystal) Lee, and Baurzhan Bokayev
The authors explore how the changes to daily life introduced during the pandemic disproportionately burdened working mothers in America, intensifying the already enormous demands of child-rearing. The book proposes that traditional gender norms assigned greater responsibility to mothers for supervising at-home schooling and managing their children’s physical and mental health during the crisis, even as they had to balance remote work and other duties.
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