The Improvised Woman: Single Women Reinventing Single Life [Paperback]

Marcelle Clements (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 1999

"A remarkable new book. . . . Marcelle Clements's The Improvised Woman has that exhilarating Eureka! quality. . . . In its modest, quizzical way, The Improvised Woman is a visionary work." —Mirabella

What is it like being a single woman today? A groundbreaking work of scope, wit, and exceptional empathy, The Improvised Woman answers that complex question, while in the process capturing-and celebrating-the real lives of single American women. Over the past seven years, journalist and essayist Marcelle Clements asked over one hundred women from across the country-young and old, never married, divorced and widowed, childless and single mothers-to talk about being single. How did they get there? Were they sorry or glad? What is the texture of their experience? The heart of this book is the individual voices of the women answering these questions, heard in all their tenacity and humor. "The Improvised Woman doesn't glide over the messy contradictions that accompany being human. . . . Clements gives her interviewees center stage to speak their minds, and appends a series of thoughtful, witty essays."—Newsweek "[Clements] is wise, non-judgmental and patient as she gains the trust of these women, who appear to be as interested in this study as the author is-and as readers, especially other single women, will be."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

We have come a long way, baby. When a group of women were asked what the ideal relationship was, none of them mentioned traditional marriage. Hmmm. Far from a collection of woeful tales of singledom, The Improvised Woman thoroughly debunks the traditional perception of lonely single women. Author Marcelle Clements takes a journalistic view of her interviewees, who range in age from their 20s to their 90s, and her objectiveness is refreshingly telling. Says one woman about her lover, "I would never marry him. I think any woman who reaches a mature age would be foolish to. Why should I give up my independence? Why should I give up my privacy?"

The majority of women that Clements talked to certainly aren't afraid of single motherhood ("it's much easier to raise children by yourself than to handle children and be a wife at the same time"). Their lives are full of passion--but passion for anything but men. Most of the divorced and widowed women profiled in the book are much more self-actualized and content with their lives than they were when they were married. A frequent refrain heard from these women is that "the ones who aren't hopeless are married," and that it's better to be alone than to feel lonely while maintaining empty relationships, which one woman described as "unsatisfying limbos."

This hefty, illuminating book will not only make for empowering reading for single women, but it could also be a kick in the pants for those men who claim that women are inscrutable. The beliefs and self-perceptions of the women profiled in this book--on subjects such as sex, work, romance, and family--are powerful testimonies about what it means to be female at the turn of the century. Clements has compiled a lively chunk of sociological history here. --Erica Jorgensen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

What could have shed light on changes in the lives of post-Cosmo girls instead gets mired down by a rather disjointed writing style. When Clements first began researching this book in the early 1990s, there were 38 million single women. Now there are nearly 43 million, making single womanhood one of the most significant social trends as America approaches the millennium. Its a trend that if better understood could dramatically impact our politics, economy, and, most importantly, our view of the sexes. Unfortunately, essayist and novelist Clements (The Dog Is Us, 1985; Rock Me, 1989) doesn't shed as much light on this subject as it deserves. True, Clements, herself a single mother, does interview scads of women on everything from their feelings on sex and creating a home for themselves to their fears of dying alone and their (possible) regrets about not having children. Her method of presenting her information, however, is off-putting and confusing at times. Shes at her best in the beginning of each chapter, where she puts forth her basic hypotheses in essay form. It's the following subsections where Clements's work falls apart, as she quotes from various women, using little descriptions that are too cute or, worse, make no sense at all. For example, Abigail, a 37-year-old architect, ``is an emotional see-saw adept.'' Evelyn B.'s introduction states: ``Despite the fact that she is a respected mathematician, Evelyn once had all the attributes needed to be a Class-A wife.'' This is then followed by Evelyn's short comment on how her friends' husbands hit on her after she got divorced. Huh? Though this work is generally frustrating to read, Clements's best work deals fruitfully with evolving new family patterns and her tracing of various historical contexts in which single women have found themselves. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393319539
• ISBN-13: 978-0393319538
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,711,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hallelujah!, February 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Improvised Woman : Single Women Reinventing Single Life (Hardcover)

I've just recently picked this book up again and read it through for the second time! So inspiring. I always felt "different" when it came to relationships with men & what my friends were doing or felt. Why didn't I dream about marriage? Why when I thought I had found "the one" (even got engaged) did it seem like a sham? All my friends say "you just haven't met the right guy. When you do, you'll feel differently."

I don't believe them. I love men, but I just can't see giving up my privacy & autonomy. I always excel at the first year or two of a relationship because you still have that to some extent...then they want more, or they want their mommies, or to go to that "next-level." ugh. I also have NO positive role models to prove me otherwise...

This book has shown me that HALLELUJAH! it's not just me. That I don't have to get married. That I can love and live and be free and not feel like I missed out on something. That marriage is NOT the end-all-be-all of what we (men and women) have to aspire to. And it's interesting that, being in the "Gen X" grouping, many of them/us have still been "programmed" to believe this! Isn't that amazing? But let me tell you something...my 80-year-old grandmother agrees with me and the book! She just wishes she could have gotten her two cents in! Thanks Marcelle!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not for the Independent Single Woman, August 13, 2003

By 

Kimberly L. Collings "osukim" (Ada, OK United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Improvised Woman: Single Women Reinventing Single Life (Paperback)

I'm single, I'm 30 and I don't feel like I'm a pariah so this book just wasn't for me. I was really hoping it would be some uplifting, positive stories about women I could look to as role models.
This book is more on how to "deal" with being single...really more for those who are RECENTLY single than Reinventing single.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars author's considerable wit and brains inform every page, August 23, 1998

By 

Courtney Farrell (NYC, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Improvised Woman : Single Women Reinventing Single Life (Hardcover)

on the surface i wouldn't have thought to order this book (from amazon of course), since the subject seems like something i've already read too much about. but after reading a review of it in the new yorker, i was intrigued. as it turns out, what i'd already read on the subject has simply not been of this caliber. far from some feminist rant about how women don't need men, or the alternative--how women are pining for men--clements' fascinating interviews,her analysis of woman's role past, present and possibly future and her charming, informative interstitial comments make this book one i found compulsively readable and thought-provoking. (And i have been married for most of my adult life--still am!). Unlike so many other women who write about "women's subjects", a humorless lot that seems more interested in rhetoric pro or con, and heaps one bogus statistic on top of another to "prove" some preconceived notion, clements' work has the ring of truth. More amazingly, she has a sense of humor, a sense of history, a sense of irony, and a killer sense of the telling anecdote, the revealing quote. she doesn't softpedal anything or anyone, she doesn't offer easy solutions, and she is neither glib nor ponderous. marcelle clements, whoever you are, you deserve a huge following, and not just among single women. For anyone who's interested in 20th-century social trends, in the ongoing "war between the sexes", in what has been happening to marriage and the family, in modern life itself, this is must reading. It's also supremely entertaining.