Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own

by Kate Bolick

Hardcover, 2015

Status

Checked out

Publication

Crown (2015), Hardcover, 336 pages

Description

Biography & Autobiography. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book â??Whom to marry, and when will it happenâ??these two questions define every womanâ??s existence.â? So begins Spinster, a revelatory and slyly erudite look at the pleasures and possibilities of remaining single. Using her own experiences as a starting point, journalist and cultural critic Kate Bolick invites us into her carefully considered, passionately lived life, weaving together the past and present to examine why­ sheâ??along with over 100 million American women, whose ranks keep growingâ??remains unmarried. This unprecedented demographic shift, Bolick explains, is the logical outcome of hundreds of years of change that has neither been fully understood, nor appreciated. Spinster introduces a cast of pioneering women from the last century whose genius, tenacity, and flair for drama have emboldened Bolick to fashion her life on her own terms: columnist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. By animating their unconventional ideas and choices, Bolick shows us that contemporary debates about settling down, and having it all, are timelessâ??the crucible upon which all thoughtful women have tried for centuries to forge a good life. Intellectually substantial and deeply personal, Spinster is both an unreservedly inquisitive memoir and a broader cultural exploration that asks us to acknowledge the opportunities within ourselves to live authentically. Bolick offers us a way back into our own livesâ??a chance to see those splendid years when we were young and unencumbered, or middle-aged and finally left to our own devices, for what they really are: unbounded… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Bookmarque
Before I married I often referred to myself as a spinster even though I’d been living with my future husband for years (a total of 7 before marrying). Quite a few people reacted with horror at my use of the word. I thought it was funny. Marriage, and particularly a Wedding, didn’t loom large in
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my psyche. I didn’t need either to feel validated or loved or whatever else those things do for the average woman who craves them. Truth is, we married for health insurance, something we always considered to be a practical reason. In some ways I still consider myself a spinster. Bolick continually asserts that when a woman marries she puts the man at the center of her life. While that may be true for many, it isn’t true for all. My husband and I are a team. If he’s the center of anything, so am I for him. It’s possibly this skewed viewpoint that blunted a lot of her own self-analysis in the book, something I wish she’d gone into more.

Instead we get a look at how spinsters of bygone ages affected and shaped Bolick’s decision to remain single and live alone. It is relatively fascinating although impersonal. For example when I was single and living with my partner, I was continually peppered with “when are you gonna tie the knot” questions. 99% of these came from women and when I said we had no plans and I didn’t have any desire to do so (unless there was a practical, monetary reason) they were perplexed and some were insulted. Bolick doesn’t relate much of this kind of thing in her own life, which I have to think happened with similar frequency (she’s only 4 years younger than me).

Her choice to remain single is an unpopular one, but it’s certainly easier now than it was for the heroines in her life. Those ladies were brave and yes, some succumbed to join the vast majority and become “that useful animal a wife and mother”, but neither decision was an easy one for them. If a man chooses to remain single, it’s a natural state and one slyly applauded by those in his circle who have yoked themselves to a woman. The institution of marriage is seen as a harness, prison, ball-and-chain and every other variation of an unfree state for a man. Not so for women. Marriage for her is correct, desirable and the ultimate expression of her femininity; to be enclosed, cared for and given the opportunity to breed freely. Even now, 100 years on from the general emancipation of women, the stigma of singlehood affects women, but not men. The state is taken as a mark of undesirability, not a personal and well-reasoned choice. At the end of the book, Bolick frustratedly asks ‘are women people yet?’ and it seems, lamentably, we’re not.
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LibraryThing member SiriJR
Maybe it's my age and temperament (26, don't care for marriage and kids) but this book feels like a great friend. Bolick's writing is intimate and personal, bringing the reader close to share some very weighty revelations. The way she intersperses the narratives of the 5 women and her own personal
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narrative is done beautifully--I wasn't sure how the construct would work when I first read the back cover, and it certainly means that the book defies easy genre categorization beyond cultural critique--but she weaves together these distinct yet similar stories to emphasize that there are myriad ways of living a life, and the only error is to let someone else determine how you will do so.

Being ensconced in this salon of 6 magnificent women was inspiring and heartening, validating just about any choice you want by emphasizing time and again that there are as many right choices as there are determined women.
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LibraryThing member Kristen11
I'm really on the fence with this one. Some parts were touching and had a very personal feel. Others were more stiff and lost me. It's good for observation and learning, not reading and enjoying.
LibraryThing member sturlington
Not what I expected at all when I picked this up by chance at the library. I thought this would be some sort of modern self-help treatise, but I actually found an engaging and absorbing history of (mostly) unmarried literary women living in the early part of the twentieth century, including Edith
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Wharton and Charlotte Perkins-Gilman. Their lives are filtered through the lens of the author's own life, as this is mostly memoir with some history rather than pure history. What I appreciate about this take on choosing singleness--and why that choice by women can be seen as controversial even still--is that the author acknowledges shades of gray rather than binary choices, and also that life is long and there are many things one can experience as part of a full life, including being both coupled and alone. Still, the theme that she never explicitly acknowledges remains clear--that a woman who wants to make art her work must in some sense be freed from the traditional expectations of marriage. Her final question, are women people yet, is one that society, unfortunately, is still trying mightily hard not to answer, at least not in the affirmative. Greatly enjoyed.
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LibraryThing member dizzyweasel
SPINSTER, Kate Bolick's memoir of her life single and coupled, is a kind of literary chimera. It's in part a story of Kate's dating life, in part a bildungsroman, and (in greatest part) a selective biography of five female writers, some better known than others. Bolick calls them her "awakeners,"
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authors who caught her attention and fostered within her the idea that her life can be of her own making, and that the common narrative of "grow up, get married, have kids" can be challenged. She questions why this must be the female narrative at all.

Bolick's "awakeners" were not really spinsters. Columnist Maeve Brennan married briefly. New Woman Neith Boyce, who wrote about the benefits of single sisterhood and the life of a happy working woman, did too (to a repulsive playboy, no less). Flapper poet Edna St. Vincent Millay married (but lived unconventionally in an open marriage. Gilded Age novelist Edith Wharton married. Social reformer Charlotte Perkins Gilman (famously the author of important feminist short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper") married and divorced. Though all found unconventional ways to live with their spouses (or leave them altogether), Bolick's blueprints for singleness were not all happily single. Bolick acknowledges this too, and that is where the selective biography comes in. Bolick creates a narrative of singleness through mental dialogues with these women, through the way she chooses to think about and remember them. They are mental avatars for qualities she desires, or ways of living she likes to think about, but they are incomplete pictures of these women--this is the limitation of biography and the the limitation of idolatry. Throughout the book, as Bolick learns more about these women and their lives, her ideas about them shift, and her own growth as a person can take their positive and negative qualities equally into account.

This is NOT a self-help book. The tone is literary memoir, not chatty step-by-step, a deliberate choice from an author who makes clear throughout her memoir her desire to be a "serious" writer and a poet. The prose is infused with delicate and lyrical turns of phrase that attempt to elevate the book out of the commonplace nature of the genre. Bolick is also very firmly upper-middle class. Raised in a large house in Newburyport, MA amid the WASPy denizens for whom money is a given and whose children can grow up to do what they want to do, Bolick has the privilege, opportunity, and support to pursue a career in writing and academic musing. She moves to Boston and New York, living in nice places (but each with their problems, like no washer/dryer, as Bolick is quick to note), with the safety net of her family home to fall back on, should she fail (which Bolick at least acknowledges). She admits the downside to being unmarried - only one income, no support at home (forcing one to create support networks outside the domestic sphere), but this too is steeped in privilege. Many women in America live in poverty or in the lower middle class. Being single (and musing about it for two decades) is simply unrealistic for these women. Bolick has access to birth control with no judgment (to keep herself from being limited by childbearing), family money to fall back on (allowing her to live alone risk free), and the strong support of the likeminded, urban, moneyed literary elite. Bolick's "awakeners" are likewise privileged in many ways. Not all of them were wealthy, but all were white New Englanders. This is Bolick's memoir. She can only write what she knows, and she acknowledges her privilege. I note this as a caveat on the book's accessibility. Most of us will never realize a life of this amount of privilege, but we can take from her writing what inspiration we may.

Readers who desire a stronger message about decisive singleness will be disappointed. Bolick is a serial dater, a woman who doesn't want marriage but doesn't know how to be single, as she notes. She is somewhat chagrined by this, but the underlying message is one that has long been the feminist creed: feminism and equality mean letting women choose their own path, whatever it is. Bolick wants to be a staunch bastion of singleness, but that's not who she is, and eventually she comes to find a way of life that can accommodate her desire to be single and coupled. Her message is this: "...the question I'd long posed to myself--whether to be married or to be single--is a false binary. The space in which I've always wanted to live--indeed, where I have spend my adulthood--isn't between those two poles, but beyond it. The choice between being married versus being single doesn't even belong here in the twenty-first century." Bolick suggests that we have come so far though the 19th and 20th centuries (as she discovers through her awakeners) that this question is irrelevant, that women are gaining real personhood, the ability to be judged not by their marital state, but by their dreams and accomplishments. It's a hopeful message, but when one looks around at a world still firmly entrenched in married=good, single=bad dichotomy for women, one might wish for a book that more firmly validated the generally unpopular decision to be single and childless, especially one that wants to reclaim the term "spinster" and make it a creed for individualism.
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LibraryThing member TanyaTomato
This book is on my to be read again and again list. Pick any chapter and there is something that expands your thoughts on single women in a better light then usually portrayed. It's encouraging to note the independent woman from the past as an influence to building today's standards. That the
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adversity I feel today is a lighter load because of the women before me.
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LibraryThing member rkreish
Disclosure: I received a review copy via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own is a hybrid memoir and biography of five women writers roughly 100 years older than the author, Kate Bolick. I made it ⅔ of the way through before putting it aside for the long haul
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because I feel like the title is a bait and switch. Bolick announces she will profile 5 “awakeners,” all with ties to New England as she does as inspiration for creating her single life, and after a significant portion of the book, it’s a story of many single women who married. Why start out with an aim of reclaiming the word spinster and then focus on so many married people? Why decide in the concluding chapter that “spinster” for you means living a life on your own terms? It’s a bit of a cop-out.

The book had much promise, but ultimately I’m a reader more intererested in the bits of sociology and history about marriage trends in the past centuries than I was in the biographies I read. Part of the reason I wasn’t interested is because I’ve read about lots of these figures before as well as Bolick’s inspiration, Carolyn Heilbrun’s Writing a Woman’s Life. I’m not so surprised by this book after reading lots of feminist literary theory starting in undergrad.
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LibraryThing member teresakayep
I read the first couple of chapters of this, and it's not meeting my expectations. It's more of a memoir than a social history or sociological examination of singleness today (or yesterday). The sections about women who inspired the author are just small bits of the narrative; there's little
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in-depth examination of their choices (at least not so far).

I was pleasantly surprised that the author is in her 40s, so she's well past the most common age of first marriage, and singleness takes on a different texture as you get older. As it happens, I am very near to the author's age (within a couple of months) and have some similar work experiences (albeit at a much less lofty level), and I am about as spinstery a spinster as you'll ever meet. Yet I saw little of myself in what I've read so far. That's not a bad thing; not all single experiences are the same. If this were marketed as a straight-up memoir, I'd be less bothered by the disconnect. But it purports to be some sort of statement about the life of unmarried women, and so far, I'm finding little there of value. The subtitle is more appropriate--I'd even tweak it to "Making a Life of My Own" to show that it is focused on the author's own life, not spinsterhood in general.

If I were to judge it simply as a memoir, it's ... adequate, inoffensive, and not quite interesting enough to tempt me to read more.
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LibraryThing member lmikkel
I really enjoyed this book. Some reviewers have complained about Bolick's use of the word 'spinster' to describe a woman who chooses to set her own course, whether or not in a relationship. But when applied with Bolick's parameters the word makes total sense. I thoroughly enjoyed her exploration of
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her 'Awakeners' since I have always been curious about, and inspired by, writers that have plotted independent courses, particularly Edith Wharton and Edna Saint Vincent Millay. Bolick's other Awakeners were interesting and thought provoking. All in all an entertaining and thought provoking book.
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LibraryThing member Amy_J
Being just a week away from my 34th birthday, there are so many aspects of this book that I can relate to. I couldn't think of a better time in my life to have this come into it. I can relate to her awakeners because, in many ways, I have many of my own; These women that I've looked up to for years
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and keep me going.

I enjoyed taking this path of acceptance with Ms. Bolick and she really helped me look into myself a lot and to try harder to look at my own spinsterhood in a more positive light. I can see this being one of those books that I go back to from time to time as a reminder to just keep traveling no matter what life does or doesn't bring you and that it's okay to walk the road less traveled.

I highly recommend to ladies of any age.

*I received an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review*
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LibraryThing member mossagate
I received this as part of LibraryThing Early Reviewers. This is maybe a timely book for me, being I'm divorcing. I'm glad I read it and I enjoyed the historical aspects and learning about her five "awakeners", but I'm also glad that after reading it, I know I'm not like the author. I can see maybe
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having aspects of one of the awakeners that figured out autonomy within marriage. This one made me think!
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LibraryThing member DMO
I received this book from LT's Early Reviewer program. I was really looking forward to this book, but I admit that the self-absorption at the beginning of the book was a bit much for me. I became more interested in what this author had to say as she explored the lives of other women writers, but I
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admit that my interest diminished every time she talked more about herself than of those writers. I'm not quite sure why--there was much that I identified with, and, in fact, I have thought about the book since finishing it (just this morning I heard someone refer to herself as a "crazy cat lady," and I immediately thought of the book. The best part of the book? I have added more names to the list of writers I want to look up.
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LibraryThing member LissaJ
Kate Bolick discovered that there are five dead women whom have in different ways inspired her own unmarried life. Neigh Boyce, Maeve Brennan, Charlotte Perkins, Edna St. Vincent Millar, and Edith Wharton lived during different time periods, had different life experiences and different occupations
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but all sought a life of solitude. Kate herself, has come to terms with the fact that her unmarried state is still against the societal norm and she looks to these women for inspiration and confirmation. As a married woman (with children), I still found myself highlighting many passages relevant to my life, especially those having to do with carving out a space of solitude. These historical women all led fascinating lives and I enjoyed how the author related it back to her own life. The book did tend to skip around and introduce other women in order to make a point before moving on completely which made it hard to retain complete focus on the book. That is a minor complaint though because overall I thought this book well written, relevant and extremely interesting. I received this book from a LibraryThing giveaway in exchange for an honest review.
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LibraryThing member KLmesoftly
This one took a while to really get interesting; it's one of those combination memoir/histories, which can sometimes really work (see: God'll Cut You Down by John Safran) but in this case came off meandering and pointless. In a memoir I want to see either meaningful self-reflection or some really
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good stories, and this one was mediocre on both counts - it worked best when Bolick was focusing on the historical women she looked up to (famous female writers who could be categorized as "spinsters"), their life stories, and the reactions of their contemporaries to their single-dom.
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LibraryThing member brittanygates
Kate Bolick combines the life stories of five female writers (her "Awakeners") with stories from her own life, as she comes to terms with her own wants and needs as a woman. Bolick seeks a life that doesn't include the terms "wife" or "mother," something that society often considers selfish and
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unconventional.

This book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I found myself much more interested in Bolick's life than her Awakeners, and wishing that there was a little less of their stories mixed in. It got a bit wordy with the history occasionally, and some of that probably could have been left out. I found the title and cover a little misleading; to me it looks a bit more like a book of humorous essays. That being said, I found Bolick's personal story fascinating. A lot of her feelings and choices really resonated with me, and I'm glad there are books like this out there.
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LibraryThing member kmg387
Ms. Bolick does a superb job of weaving memoir, history, and narrative in "Spinster". (There's even a toe-dip into the pool of interior decorating/design, which I wholly enjoyed.) As person who is legally single but living with a long-term partner, I can say that this book is not just for women who
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are living the "spinster" lifestyle (or are just single and dating no one in particular); it's about living your life as you choose (not how society thinks you should choose), and highlighting new ways to think about old attitudes.
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LibraryThing member dd196406
I really enjoyed this book. Made me think, stretched my mind to the possibilities available to a woman living in the world. Opened new ideas for pathways to navigate my life. Not a light read, although it does offer humor, but it really made me think. I recommend it, especially for women.
LibraryThing member its-lauren3
I wanted to like "Spinster," but at the end of the book, I was left wondering what the point was. It's not very well organized - the biography of five different female writers/artists is woven in with Bolick's memoir - and there is not a clear thesis. The whole book is less about "living
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authentically" or "making a life of one's own" than it is an idealization of the single life.
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LibraryThing member chris227
I received this as an advanced reader edition from Librarything .

I was excited to receive Spinster: making a live of one's own. I thought this book had great potential. What I find though was a wordy description of bayous feminist writers intermingled with stories from the author's life. I found
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myself drifting off and just could not 'get in' to this book.
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LibraryThing member CaptainRowan
Spinster by Kate Bolick is a cross between a memoir and an academic look at the spinster woman through the lens of feminist literary figures. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that Bolick writes her memoir while exploring herself through the medium of an academic look at certain literary figures
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who have been particularly transformative in her own life. Either way, I found the book to be a captivating read through Bolick's thought process as she wrestles with the concept of being an adult woman alone in the world - what place the world holds for such women, and how she can model this to her liking, if she decides she even wants to do so.
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LibraryThing member kellie.herson
As a woman who's totally uninterested in marriage, I expected to love this, but it wasn't exactly what I was anticipating -- I thought there would be a bit more theory/politics and a lot less literary history. Which isn't to say the literary history portions are not enjoyable, or the book is not
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well written; Bolick's voice is clear and endlessly readable, but I went to graduate school for literature and found that much of the book was telling me a lot of what I already knew. To be clear, there's definitely an audience of people for this, but I found myself skimming long sections of information I was already familiar with, rather than engaging in a thoughtful, critical discussion about monogamy, gender, and independence. We get a bit of that discussion at the book's open and its close, but it could have been much expanded and much meatier.
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LibraryThing member ecataldi
This isn't what I initially expected it to be. I thought it would be more of a memoir/ how to guide. Instead it is a memoir/ these are my literary role models. It reads as a history with a bit of memoir in between heroines. It is a very eloquent, literary read that made me feel like an
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unenlightened yak. Author, Kate Bolick, comes off as a bit pretentious (although I don't think that is her intention) but well meaning. She talks about her own awakening and how it was inspired by five American female literary geniuses who were ahead of their time. I knew about three of the women she talked about, two of them were completely new to me. While an interesting historical read about the American single woman in the past two centuries, I'm still not convinced that that is the choice for me. Someday I'd like to get married and have kids, but after reading this memoir, I better understand why that is not the choice of thousands of women. An interesting, albeit dense read.

I received this book for free from Library Thing in return for my honest, unbiased opinion.
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LibraryThing member AliciaOverstreet
I enjoyed reading this book, it was a great break from the fantasy stuff I've been reading lately. I was able to relate to Kate's story and to the history that was given regarding single women from the past.
LibraryThing member silentq
The author goes into the history of women writers who "awakened" her to realising that she was happiest alone. Some interesting history, and some personal insights into the author, it was an easy read.
LibraryThing member AquariusNat
This was an interesting book . It seemed to be half memoir with mini bios on five historical women that may have lead a spinster life mixed in . It would've been better if it was a straight ahead research about spinster hood . She should have made her personal story separate .

Awards

Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize (Longlist — Nonfiction — 2015)

Language

Original publication date

2015

ISBN

0385347138 / 9780385347136

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