According to studies by the Pew Research Center, one in four American adults may never marry and 44 percent of Millennials and 43 percent of Gen-Xers think that marriage is obsolete. Kate Bolick is a contributing editor for The Atlantic and a freelance writer for ELLE, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She is convinced that the two questions which define every woman's existence are who to marry and when to marry.
Bolick traces her spinster's wish ("shorthand for the extravagant pleasures of simply being by myself") to her first half decade out of college. With great elan, the author pays tribute to five women who inspired her to stay the course: poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, essayist Maeve Brennan, columnist Neith Boyce, novelist Edith Wharton, and social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman. These "awakeners" model for her the ample rewards of spinsterhood: solitude, freedom, and an optimum experience of self-discovery. Bolick's memoir gives living alone a grand and glorious tribute!
