Praise for Why We Can’t Sleep
“Candid and engaging. [Calhoun] is a funny, smart, compassionate narrator . . . I admired her insistence on taking women’s concerns seriously.”
—Curtis Sittenfeld, New York Times Book Review
“Calhoun speaks directly to her own generation, peppering the book with so many specific cultural touchstones . . . that I found reading Why We Can’t Sleep to be a singular experience— driving home her point that Gen X is so often overlooked.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“An engaging hybrid of first-person confession, reportage, pop culture analysis, and statistics . . . Reading Why We Can’t Sleep I worried I was pre-menopausal; testament, I think, to Calhoun’s powers of persuasion, since I’m a man.”
—Rumaan Alam, New Republic
“Timely, humane, raw, honest, and sincere.”
—Forbes, “10 Most Anticipated Books of 2020,
According to Independent Bookstores”
“Women are taught to not feel anything for ourselves and to not feel for one another. And our generation is the smallest generation . . . [this] is a book that makes you feel less crazy. Like oh, it is not my imagination.”
—Kelly Ripa on Live with Kelly and Ryan
“A superb mix of personal stories and deep research about a generation of women who are facing unprecedented pressure as they enter middle age. It’s at once realistic, but positive, asking women to face up to reality, let go of expectations, find a support system and accept this stage isn’t forever.”
—Huffington Post
“Marriage implosions, rising debt, and a constant sense of failure pop up throughout this brief but potent and sometimes funny book . . . Why We Can’t Sleep might do much to let readers like the women Calhoun writes about know that they are not alone.” —Literary Hub
“Calhoun’s latest will be useful for those interested in feminist theory, especially insofar as it intersects with age and class, as well as a useful resource for people struggling to find balance in their personal and professional lives.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Bracing, empowering . . . Women of every generation will find much to relate to in this humorous yet pragmatic account.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Ada Calhoun provides a thoughtful, incisive account of the myriad challenges facing Generation X women.”
—Shelf Awareness
“An assured, affable guide, Calhoun balances bleakness with humor and the hope inherent in sharing stories that will make other women feel less alone. She also gives good advice for finding support through midlife hardship. This is a conversation starter (as well as a no-brainer for book groups that count Gen X women among their members) that might get Boomer and Millennial readers curious, too.” —Booklist
“Ada Calhoun’s soulful investigation into the complex landscape women in midlife face today is downright stunning. Calhoun has captured the voices—some broken, some resilient, many barely staying afloat—of over 200 women from around the country and in doing so, shown us how much we share in divisive times. You will recognize yourself in these pages, breathe a sigh of relief, and think, I’m not alone.”
—Susannah Cahalan, author of the New York Times
bestselling Brain on Fire
“This is the book of our generation. Ada Calhoun brilliantly encapsulates the struggle and confusion that is the Gen X woman’s experience in middle age. And by placing this condition into the context of the generations coming before and after, she makes sense of how it is that we’re so surprised that we have failed at having it all. Heavily researched, expertly paced, and seamlessly woven together, Why We Can’t Sleep provides an ‘aha’ moment that at once validates our experience and establishes a sense of community and hope.”
—Janet Krone Kennedy, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, author
of The Good Sleeper and founder of NYC Sleep Doctor
“It’s difficult to grapple with the immense anxiety and fear so many women go through alone, but Ada Calhoun’s artistry as a writer makes her the perfect guide through the rough business of middle age.” —Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill
“Helping women realize that some difficulty, some confusion, is not just all in their mind is probably one of your more feminist acts, and the impressive amount of research Ada Calhoun did on the very specific forces, past and present, that are bedeviling Gen X women as they face the strange period that is midlife is just that kind of gift. But the other gift is that she writes with clear sight, compassion, and hope about our very specific talents and tenacity. Which means: this book is a thousand times more healing than a jadeite egg!”
—Carlene Bauer, author of Not That Kind of Girl
“I love Ada Calhoun’s writing. Why We Can’t Sleep just took me to school, laughing all the way there.”
—Adam Horovitz of Beastie Boys
“‘Having it all’ was the Baby Boomers’ rallying cry as, aided by new tools of reproductive control, we burst from the pink ghettoes of the secretarial pool and ceaseless childcare to seek fulfillment in workaholic professions. Two generations later, despairing Gen X women find the glass mountain of fulfillment still impossible to scale, and with deep perception, wit and incisive analysis, Ada Calhoun tells us why, tracing the internal as well as the external forces that separate women from the peace they’ve spent their lives earning.”
—Harriet A. Washington, A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind
WHY
WE
CAN’T
SLEEP
Also by Ada Calhoun
Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give
St. Marks Is Dead
WHY
WE
CAN’T
SLEEP
Ada
Calhoun
Grove Press
New York
Copyright © 2020 by Ada Calhoun
Cover design by Becca Fox Design
Cover illustrations: night sky © alexkoral/Shutterstock; faces © essl/123rf
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
First Grove Atlantic edition: January 2020
First Grove Atlantic paperback edition: January 2021
This book is set in 12-point Dante MT by Alpha