In a 2005 essay, Nora Ephron wrote, “There’s a reason why 40, 50, and 60 don’t look the way they used to, and it’s not because of feminism or better living through exercise. It’s because of hair dye.” That essay coincided with the first time Dorothy Rice grew out her gray hair—it didn’t last long. Fast forward fourteen years and after decades of struggling to be thin enough, pretty enough, sexy enough, and successful enough to deserve love and happiness, she devotes a year to cracking the code, a journey that forces her to confront the gnarled roots of female shame. And it begins with her trying once again to go gray. But this time, it’s less about surrendering to age than it is about finding herself.

In her memoir Gray Is the New Black: A Memoir of Self Acceptance, Dorothy shares her deeply personal, belated coming of age story of self-improvement and acceptance – lose weight, find love, purpose and happiness – where she succeeds by failing and learns what’s really important in the process. Conceived, drafted and refined in a “Book in a Year” class after her retirement and further nurtured at Sonoma County Writers Camp, it provides deep insight into the thought processes, behavior, and feelings of women across generations and illustrates the understanding that many will weather similar storms—a too comfortable marriage, a daunting empty nest, prickly feelings of sibling rivalry, self-doubt, caring for an elderly parent, and, sadly, abuse.