Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

I loved reading this heartfelt and thorough investigation of a rather unexplored phenomenon as living alone. I enjoyed very much the way the plot unfolds. I could not put the book down until the end, something that never occurs.

As in Heat Wave, the account unfolds through the eloquent use of academic literature, the compelling stories of informants, and the author's candid observations. Without revealing too much, I enjoyed how Klinenberg convinced me of the appeal of living alone. I often found myself wondering how the author, a married man with two kids, could explain with crystal clarity the thrill of making it alone of many women like me - buying a home on your own, finding your path, falling in love with your higher self. What I loved the most was how the author employed the "appeal" of the "social experiment" of living alone as the foundation for the discussion of the other side of the coin - the hardships and hazards of living alone in societies not yet equipped to serve legions of one-head householders.

As social scientist who studied for the last four years the condition of living alone in older age in America, I was pleased to finally, for the first time, read such an articulate and entertaining discussion of the many facets of living solo. I appreciated how Klinenberg draws the line between loneliness and living alone, how he highlights the issues of studying social isolation and the importance of proper housing policies. I was taken by the author's account of his grandmother's experience in a high-end assistive living facility (we know so little about life in these spaces!), his reflection on horrific nursing homes and unaffordable services for older adults, as well as his discussion of best practices in New York and in Sweden.

Finally, whereas Heat Wave was a serious book as "social autopsies" should be, Going Solo surprised me with some very funny paragraphs where I found myself laughing hard. It was a joy to finally immerse myself into a sophisticated analysis founded on unforgettable ethnographies, clear arguments, and even humor. What an inspiration!

This Book Will Change Our Lives -- For the Better

There are three interrelated trends that are reshaping our personal lives and our society, and all three have been developing for decades:
* The rise in the number and proportion of people who are single (always-single, divorced, or widowed);
* The increasing number of years that adults spend unmarried rather than married, with the unmarried years now outnumbering the married ones; and
* The increase in the number of people living solo.

The last of those three is the topic of a book so important that it is likely to become both a popular read and a social science classic. It is Eric Klinenberg's just-published Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.

Does the title of this review sound like hype? I meant it seriously. This book really will change the lives of people who live solo, and everyone else. At least it should. The main thing standing in the way of an explosion of attention and impact is that the claims are not sensationalized. More people are living solo than ever before in human history. That's just a fact. If Klinenberg had tried to persuade us that, as a consequence of this rise in living alone, America was becoming a nation of isolated, lonely people, and that our civic and community life was in a long period of decline - well, then he would have an instant best-seller, hands-down! In fact, as he notes, the best-selling sociology books in the history of the United States have peddled just such dire messages.

If you wanted to see the rise of solo living as a bad, bad thing, you could comb through Going Solo, pluck a few choice excerpts, and make your case. Similarly, if you wanted to declare that living solo is an unmitigated personal and interpersonal good, you could find some quotes that would seem supportive. What you cannot do, if you really do read the entire book, is come away with anything but a deep and complex understanding of what it means to live alone. It can be exhilarating or depressing or both. It can be awesome for some and awful for others.

I don't know the author (though I did talk to him on the phone when he was researching the book), but I did know his previous work. I have to admit that I was a bit wary when I first learned that he was writing a book on solo living. That's because one of his previous books, Heat Wave, was about the hundreds of Chicagoans who died alone, at home, during the 1995 heat wave. Would Going Solo be the sociological version of Bridget Jones's fear about ultimate fate of people who live single - that they would all "end up dying alone and found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian"? Not hardly.

Eric Klinenberg does tell us about the worst cases - people who really do die alone, and whose bodies remain unclaimed by any other humans. Yet even then, he does not presume to judge: "...when truly isolated people die alone...we can't actually know whether their solitude was a source of sadness, or satisfaction" (p. 128).

I have so much more to say about this book. I'll save those discussions for blog posts. (Already available is my list of the top 12 things you probably did not know about living solo: [...] For now, I'll end by returning to the title of this review.

So why will Going Solo change our lives? Here are a few of the reasons:

* The book puts solo living on the map, as a pervasive and consequential feature of contemporary life, not just in the United States, but far beyond. It establishes going solo as a way of living not likely to recede anytime soon.

* The research and the arguments are thorough, balanced, and persuasive. The work is based on more than 300 interviews, collected nationally and internationally, over a 7-year period. The author is an esteemed sociologist, who positions his findings in historical and cross-cultural context.

* Eric Klinenberg explains, for many big important domains of life, why the increase in solo living matters: "The rise of living alone has been a transformative social experience. It changes the way we understand ourselves and our most intimate relationships. It shapes the way we build our cities and develop our economies. It alters the way we become adults, as well as how we age and the way we die. It touches every social group and nearly every family, no matter who we are or whether we live with others today" (p. 6).

* Perhaps most significant, in terms of actually making change happen, is that Going Solo builds up to a final chapter, "Redesigning solo life." There, Klinenberg shares his insights about what societies can do to support and enrich the lives not only of those people who are living alone, but also those who care about the singletons, or who may find themselves living solo in the future.

--Bella DePaulo, author of Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After

a fascinating look at the
future. some ideas to think about: are retirement homes too oppressive? is a community of singles of mixed ages more satisfying? should we try harder to find away to help those who are poor and isolated? the book is too short for the price and too focused on new york city, but has some intensively researched insights.