CheekyChicago

In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown dismissed Sex & the Single Girl as “just a pippy-poo little book.” She was being disingenuous, as she knew full well the importance of what she wrote.

Her assertion that women can be contentedly single still goes against social norms, but Brown was getting at something even deeper. On the final page of S&SG, she lands upon it: “If you are worried about being single, or more importantly, uneasy about being you all your life (as I was and still am), intermittent forays into dressing, cooking, looking, flirting and flattering better can help you rout the trembles.”

You are you, all of your life. Yikes.

If you’re reeling in horror over that revelation, S&SG makes for a great palliative (as do flirting and flattering).

While her morality’s a bit sketchy — affairs with married men are, if not encouraged, permitted and she explicitly instructs women to use their sexuality for their own gain — Brown provides a torrent of useful tidbits. There are tips on everything from applying make-up to advancing your career, and her advice is, for the most part, solid. I can personally testify to the power of “carry[ing] a controversial book at all times.”

Still, reading S&SG one can’t help but wonder whether the whimsical, well-decorated world of endless possibilities to which, according to Brown, every single woman is entitled can actually be created.  Enter Anna David.

After falling in love with a married man, David stumbled upon S&SG and decided to see what would happen if she put Brown’s advice into practice “in a world where everyone thinks you must be on a manhunt if you’re single.” The end result is her charming new memoir—Falling for Me.

During her year of “living Helen,” David makes a conscientious effort to embrace a spirit of adventure and spontaneity, despite an innate aversion to both. She takes French, fails at pottery, learns to cook, entertains and travels… alone. And, ultimately, she circles back around to the same idea: you are always you.

It’s an unnerving point—we human beings are so often ill at ease with ourselves!—but both Brown and David deliver it in such a gentle, compelling way that the statement begins to seem not so much a threat as an exciting possibility. You are always you. Reading their books, one feels not only empowered but buoyed by this.

Buy Falling for Me on Amazon. See the book trailer here. Follow Anna on Twitter (@annadavid).

This is the ninth installment of our Cheeky Book Club series; see the scandalous book we read last month or check out our full reading list here.

To read more about Oline Eaton and why she is so Cheeky, please click here.