By Himself : The Older Man's Experience of Widowhood / Deborah van den Hoonaard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

van den Hoonaard, Deborah, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Widowers--Canada--Social conditions.

Widowers--United States--Social conditions.

Widowers--Canada--Biography.

Widowers--United States--Biography.

Widowers--Canada--Interviews.

Widowers--United States--Interviews.

United States.

Canada.

Genre:

Interviews.

Biographies.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (213 p.)

Place of Publication:

Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2018]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

What happens when older men become widowers? Popular books, movies, and television present widowers as lost and unable to cope or care for themselves. These stereotypes do not encapsulate the experiences of real widowers, how their daily lives change, and what being a widower means to individuals in both sociological and practical ways.By Himself is based on in-depth interviews with twenty-six widowers over the age of sixty living in the United States and Canada. Using these interviews, Deborah K. van den Hoonaard explores masculine identity and traces the stories that widowers tell about their wives' illnesses and deaths. She also focuses on the widowers' changed relationships with their children and friends, as well as with women, and details the men's encounters with tasks such as housework and cooking. An eminently readable and accessible book, By Himself sheds new light on the social meaning of being a widower.

Contents:

Part One: Introduction

1 Introduction

2 Masculinity and Older Widowers

Part Two: Experiencing the Unexpected

3 Becoming a Widower

4 Early Days of Widowhood

Part Three: Negotiating Relationships with Others

5 Widowers' Relationships with Their Children

6 Women in the Lives of Widowers

7 Relationships with Friends

Part Four: Experiencing Everyday Life

8 Everyday Life in and out of the House

9 Cooking and Housework

10 Conclusion

Appendix: Interview Guide.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Nov 2018)

ISBN:

1-4426-9907-8

1-4426-8652-9

OCLC:

759157272