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You’re never too old to start thinking you’re never too old.
When British author CJ Wray — the pseudonym of Christine Manby, a Sunday Times best-selling author — was commissioned to help write the memoirs of two 90-something World War II veteran sisters, she had no idea the assignment would change her path as a novelist. Or her outlook on life.
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It was just before the COVID-19 pandemic, and Wray, 51, was in a bit of a slump. The author of more than 40 books, she had been writing chick-lit novels for decades, including Running Away From Richard, Seven Sunny Days and The Matchbreaker, and was feeling underwhelmed. “I was coming up to 50 and I thought, Where do I go from here?” she says.
Then she met Patricia and Jean Owtram — sisters who had joined the World War II effort as young women, tasked with duties such as intercepting German shipping radio and cracking code to help defeat the Nazis. They had lived relevant and remarkable lives, but even more inspiring to Wray? They were continuing to do so. Age hadn’t slowed them down.
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When Wray confided to them her uncertainty about approaching middle age, “They just kicked me up the arse, to use an English expression,” she says. “'You know, What’s wrong with you! You’re so young! You’ve got so much ahead of you!' And they were still so vital and vibrant. … It’s just opened up a whole new world.”
And a whole new genre.
The Excitements, which came out last year, represents a departure from Wray’s long-running career as a romance writer, moving her into a genre that is far less easy to define (although perhaps that, too, is a metaphor for approaching life). Part literary fiction, part historical fiction and part feel-good romp, the book tells the story of two spunky nonagenarian sisters and World War II vets, Penny and Josephine Williamson, whose lives in Britain are filled with James Bond-esque secrets and law-breaking escapades that they keep hush-hush from even their beloved great-nephew and caretaker, Archie.
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