Eric Klinenberg

A sociologist explores the demographic rise in people who are living alone, including interviews with young professionals, middle-aged singles, the divorced and the elderly and discovers that they are more engaged in social and civic life than their married counterparts. 25,000 first printing.

The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone

Going Solo

Gavin

Important topic – tracking the fast rise of one-tenant housing just as soon as a country becomes rich enough, tracing the ideological roots of normative pairing, looking at chimps and orangutans and showing the large caveats in the research that claims that married people are on average happier. 

But that’s all covered in the preface, and Klinenberg’s prose is canting and repetitive – after chapter 4 I could not stand any more of his interviewees’ corporate self-conceptions and language (“I needed this in order to grow as a person”). It is wholly cool and righteous to live alone; talking about it this way is revolting.

Interesting topic. Chapters on aging were especially compelling and left me thinking about ways to help that community. However, the sections on young singles was really lacking. Typically, I'm not frustrated by a narrow perspective, but his analysis of young singles was so heteronormative. Klinenberg remarks early on that young people who live alone can typically afford to do so because they're more financially secure. They have good jobs, steady incomes, etc. OK, this is a diverse group, yet he seemed to only explore the single-female experience. This narrow perspective was especially apparent during the housing discrimination for singles discussion.

Going Solo The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone

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