Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own

Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own is written by Kate Bolick. It’s categorized as Social Science—Feminism & Feminist Theory, but it’s more than a sociological text. It’s a biographical, autobiographical, literary theory, and psychology text. Spinster asks the question, “What does it mean for a woman to truly live her own life?”

This question comes on a very long history of women sacrificing their own wants and desires to fulfill the needs of their children, husbands, parents, and society. In the past, accepting a marriage meant becoming a mother—something that would either end or limit a woman’s career. Bolick’s book shows that many spinsters might have been happy to marry (and some ultimately did), but refused because they were unwilling to subjugate their lives to the lives of others.

In modern American culture, women can marry and retain their rights, money, and careers. We can choose not to have children. What, then, is a modern spinster? Bolick weaves her decades-long search for the answer in with the lives of five female writers who chose spinsterhood over marriage.

{No spoilers, but I highly recommend this book! So expect to see some affiliate links in this post. You can read my affiliate links disclaimer here.}

The American Spinster’s Thoughts on Spinster

Normally, when people say a book “gives the reader a feeling of intimacy,” I read, “The author flung her most private moments onto the page in a crass manner, hoping to sound salacious.” That’s definitely not what happens in Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own. Yet the book was truly intimate. By the time I’d finished it, Kate Bolick might have been a close friend I’d grown up with.

She skillfully introduces her relationships (sexual, platonic, and familial) alongside the biographies of the literary spinsters who’ve influenced her. It’s not just a historical, nonfiction account of women who pioneered the spinster life in the United States. It’s also an account of how the author responded to their work and their lives. The result is an intimate, informative, thought-provoking look at the innate desire to truly be oneself.

**Should you read Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own?**

Throughout the book, Bolick deals with what she calls “the spinster wish,” which is “shorthand for the extravagant pleasures of simply being myself.” She struggles to understand why she isn’t happy being in a relationship with a man who seems like her perfect match. A man she’s in love with. Time and again, she turns to her group of five spinster writers from the 19th and 20th centuries.

This book is perfect for anyone:

Interested in women writers, feminist theory, or women’s history
Struggling to live on her own, financially or emotionally
Living in, or thinking about living in, a living-apart-together relationship
Harboring a secret “spinster wish”

Even if you don’t see yourself as a spinster (or even single), it’s still an inspirational look at, as Bolick writes, “holding on to that in you which is independent and self-sufficient, whether you’re single or coupled.”