Flash Count Diary: A New Story About the Menopause

Menopause hit Darcey Steinke hard. First came hot flushes. Then insomnia. Then depression. As she struggled to understand what was happening to her, she slammed up against a culture of silence and sexism. Some promoted hormone replacement therapy, others encouraged acceptance, but there was little that offered a path to understanding menopause in an engaged way.

She felt lost until she encountered a scientific fact: the only two creatures on earth that go through menopause are human women and female killer whales. Her fascination with this fact became the starting point for Flash Count Diary, a powerful exploration into aspects of menopause that have rarely been written about, including the changing gender landscape that reduced levels of hormones brings, the actualities of transforming desires, and the realities of prejudice against older women.

Flash Count Diary is a deeply feminist book, honest about the intimations of mortality that menopause signals but also an argument for the ascendancy, beauty and power of the post-reproductive years in women's lives.

About the Author :
Darcey Steinke is the author of five novels including Sister Golden Hair, Jesus Saves, Up Through the Water, Milk and Suicide Blonde, and a memoir Easter Everywhere. Her books have been translated into ten languages. darceysteinke.com

Review :
Many days I believe menopause is the new (if long overdue) frontier for the most compelling and necessary philosophy; Darcey Steinke is already there, blazing the way. This elegant, wise, fascinating, deeply moving book is an instant classic. I'm about to buy it for everyone I know A searingly intelligent, richly imagined, deeply moving memoir and exploration of menopause. This is not like anything I have ever seen on the subject . . . [Steinke] takes her body, our history and nature itself seriously . . . I was incredibly stirred, educated and inspired by this book . . . I love this book. I admire this book. It's fierce, and it's important A fiercely intelligent trawl through menopausal waters that is not afraid to confront the intricacies of the female body and mind. There is a beautiful precision to the writing Incandescent [Steinke's] refreshing description of the second act is stylish. Based on interviews, it is a new take on the power of women at this stage of adulthood . . . she has a positive take on desire and sexuality, which many women will find uplifting and surprising Darcey Steinke opens the door on to the dark, frightening and lonely room where the Menopause has long resided and draws it into the sun, into the light. It's a book for all women (and men), written with brilliance, imagination, humanity, lucidity and love Revolutionary Part memoir, part manifesto, part natural history, this book is a profound white-knuckle ride through unnamed territories Meticulously researched and passionately written, Flash Count Diary examines the shame and stigma attached to female aging so closely that their opposites are revealed. Steinke posits menopause as a channel through which new realms of possibility, depth, strength and growth can be revealed. An inspiring and visionary book I hope that Steinke's book, which I consumed hungrily, will encourage a wave of work by and about women undergoing what is, quite literally, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Steinke makes the case that the inexorable slide away from fertility is a rebirth of agency, and her book is the fruit of the very creativity it describes