Good Joy, Bad Joy: A Guest Post by Mikki Brammer

After her best friend is given months to live, 89-year-old Joy Bridport sets out to live life to the fullest in this joyful celebration of friendship, growing old and finding peace. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Mikki Brammer on writing Good Joy, Bad Joy.

From the bestselling author of The Collected Regrets of Clover comes a vibrant, heartfelt novel about friendship over the decades, self-discovery, and what it means to have a life well-lived.

On a recent visit back home to Tasmania, I was having lunch with my mum, my great aunt Hilda, and my cousin. Still spry and independent only a few years shy of her 90th birthday, Hilda—a lifelong cinema buff—asked if any of us would see a particular movie with her. The rest of us had already seen it, so I suggested that she see it with one of her friends.

“All my friends are dead!” she declared, with her signature dry humor, but also  a hint of lament.

Of course, I then offered to see it a second time with her, but her predicament gave me pause. I realized that  in a world where everyone seems to be chasing longevity, we rarely stop to think about what it’s actually like if we end up being the last one standing of our contemporaries.

The youngest of twelve, Hilda had outlived all her siblings, her parents, and almost all the friends she’d known. I tried to imagine what that must be like, especially since Western society also tends to devalue our elders and render them no longer “useful,” despite their decades of hard-earned wisdom. What irony it is to manage to live longer than most, only to be rendered invisible by the world you’ve managed to cling to.

That’s when the character of  Joy Bridport germinated in my imagination.

What is it like to be the last one left? Or to look back on ninety years of life and wonder if you might have done things differently? Hilda lived a wonderfully full life—curious, adventurous, and witty right up until her final years. But what about someone like Joy who has kept their life very small, always playing by the rules of others—of their parents, their religion, their society—people-pleasing to a fault? When faced with the loss of her last (and best) friend, Joy begins to realize that following the rules hasn’t necessarily brought her happiness. And though she was a dedicated wife and mother, she can’t help wondering if  her life might have been more fulfilling if she’d put herself before those things.  Perhaps if she’d taken more risks, rebelled a little more against what was expected of her, life might have turned out differently.

When we speak of coming-of-age stories, they’re usually tales of a late-teen or twenty-something venturing into the “real” world and discovering themselves in the process. But as Joy eventually learns, we can actually come of age at any time, even if it takes eighty years to bloom into our true selves.

I hope her story  inspires you to cherish your friendships, seize life on your own terms, and perhaps dabble in a bit of mischief.