SOURCE: Hassenger, Robert. Review of Passages, by Gail Sheehy. New Republic 175, no. 12 (18 September 1976): 30-1.

In the following review, Hassenger observes that Sheehy addresses several important issues in Passages, but fails to offer workable ideas about how individuals may successfully negotiate the “passages” through adulthood.

This book [Passages] is getting a lot of attention. The personality theorists from whom journalist Sheehy has learned—some allege stolen—are dismissing it as pop psychology. Paperback rights have already been sold for a quarter million. Can Truffaut and the Maysles be far behind?

I'd have to go with Woody Allen. For, while important, this book is too damn serious. It will scare the pants off a lot of people. For Sheehy has hit many of us where we live—or used to. Before, that is, we hit the “Dead-line Decade” of the mid-30s (for women) and early 40s (more typical of...