I thought it would be easy to compile a list of books where women live alone. And it was, but what is considerably less easy is to think about books where women live alone and don’t fall into, or emerge from a completely deranged state. I asked friends, and one replied, “the first thing that came to mind was Marian Engel’s Bear, then I remembered she has sex with a bear.” We then debated whether having sex with a bear disqualified the book from “a novel where a woman living alone isn’t deranged” and we reluctantly decided it did. I’m interested in stories where women in solitude are not abject, feared or discarded. In my memoir Arrangements in Blue, I write about finally making a home for myself, alone, in my early 40s—something I felt might never happen—and while it is imperfect as any home is on occasion, it is also a state of grace, comfort and the site of my whole creative life. It pleases me that my list—by accident rather than intent—is formed of books where in solitude women contemplate their relationship with other women (in the main), rather than with men. It’s as though I’ve unwittingly passed a kind of Bedchel test. Here are 9 novels about women living alone: Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey I always feel a sense of tremendous relief when I read a narrator who isn’t going to have children and is (broadly speaking) ok with that. In Guadalupe Nettel’s Still Born, translated by Rosalind Harvey, two friends—Laura and Alina—explore their paths through maternal ambivalence. While Alina pursues motherhood, Laura, who lives alone, encounters motherhood in an entirely different way. The portrayal of Laura’s relationship to motherhood, via being a daughter and her friendships with mothers, is incredibly moving and nuanced. That Laura also lives alone, in apparent contentment other than disturbances from pigeons and the disruptive and compelling lives of others, made the book all the more affecting to read. Take a break […]
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