Gray Love narrates stories about the most common themes – searching for and (perhaps) finding love. Forty-five men and women between ages 60 and 94 from diverse backgrounds talk about dating, starting or ending a relationship, embracing life alone or enjoying a partnered one. The longing for connection as old age encroaches is palpable here, with more and more senior singles searching online. Those who find new partners explore issues that most relationships encounter at any age, as well as some that are unique to elder relationships. These include having had previous partners and a complicated and deep personal history; family and friends’ reactions to an older person’s dating; alternative models to marriage (such as sharing space or living apart); having more than one partner at the same time; one’s aging body, appearance, and sexuality; and the pressure of time and the specter of illness and death.

Contributions by: Nan Bauer-Maglin, Daniel E. Hood, Cynthia McVay, Susan Ostrov Weisser, Phyllis Carito, Neil Stein, Jonathan Ned Katz, Laura Broadwell, Stephanie M. Brown, Elizabeth Locke, Candida B. Korman, Amy Rogers, Margie Kaplan, Alice F. Freed, Hedva Lewittes, Rett Zabriskie, Irvin Peckham, William Wiesner, Natasha Josefowitz, Phyllis Bogen, Erica Manfred, Judith Ugelow Blak, Linda Wright Moore, Jean Y. Leung, Jan Jacobson, Stephanie Speer, David Levy, Sandi Goldie, Jim Bronson, Vincent Valenti, Stacey Parkins Millett, Eugene Roth, Isabel Hill, Doris Friedensohn, Paul Lauter, Susan O’Malley, Barbara Abercrombie, Susan Bickley, Sarah Dunn, Mimi Schwartz, Bonnie Fails, Angela Page, Tierl Thompson, Idris Walters, Dustin Beall Smith