The Extra Woman

How Marjorie Hillis Led a Generation of Women to Live Alone and Like It

By: Joanna Scutts

Narrated by: C. S. E. Cooney

Despite multiple waves of feminist revolution, today's single woman is still mired in judgment or, worse, pity. But for one brief exclamatory period in the 1930s, she was all the rage. Marjorie Hillis was working at Vogue when she published the radical self-help book Live Alone and Like It: A Guide for the Extra Woman. With Dorothy Parker-esque wit, she urged spinsters, divorcees, and old maids to shed derogatory labels, and her philosophy became a phenomenon.

From the importance of a peignoir to the joy of breakfast in bed (alone), Hillis's tips made single life desirable and chic. Now, historian and critic Joanna Scutts reclaims Hillis as the queen of the "Live-Aloners" and explores the turbulent decades that followed, when the status of these "brazen ladies" peaked and then collapsed. The Extra Woman follows Hillis and others like her who forged their independent paths before the 1950s saw them trapped behind picket fences yet again.

©2018 Joanna Scutts (P)2017 Tantor

One seriously acerbic wit here!

Your grandparents and great-grandparents leave you their success books? This book is like visiting my grandmother's friends after the point where Grandma stopped trying to be a good example. You know the sadness of Marge Simpson having no friends? This is what her friends would sound like if she had had any, talking over the self help books over the years and planning out their own lives. Great book -- great history and many, many great laughs.

Fascinating history

This is a fascinating history of attitudes about single women throughout the 20th century. It’s interestingly told, and the narrator does a great job bringing vibrancy to the text.

Fascinating

I loved reading about Marjorie Hollis' life and work. Joanna Scutts did a great job illustrating how Marjorie's books influenced women from the 1930s through today - for those of us lucky enough to find them. They are full of common sense.