Long before midlife had its own podcasts, wellness retreats and Instagram vocabulary, Gail Sheehy was telling readers that reaching 40 could make them question almost everything they thought they had figured out. Published in 1976, ‘Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life’ became an international bestseller by doing something that now feels remarkably familiar. It took private anxieties about ageing, marriage, careers, sex and identity and organised them into recognisable stages of adult life.
