Why Do We Love Spinster Lit?
Spinsters, let’s face it, are chic and independent. They have cats, belong to writers’ groups, and play Scrabble. They might not have e-mail. On the other hand, they might be addicted to dating sites. And their Little Free Library stocks only Viragos and Booker Prize winners.
In reality, married women also have cats and play Scrabble, but are frequently annoyed by the chaotic state of their Little Free Library. Why do passers-by dump tatty ancient copies of The Exorcist– sorry, that’s not your kind of book, and you remove it -and once there was a used condom. Very gross. If that happens to spinsters, they don’t mention it.
Little Free Libraries are often stuffed with romance novels, which are said to account for about one-third of book sales, but I maintain that spinster lit has many followers. For one thing, the spinster novels often include a marriage plot, an unexpected/expected twist that enhances the pleasure of reading.
Barbara Pym is the Queen of Spinster Lit. Her brilliant comic novel, No Fond Return of Love, begins at an indexers’ conference. (Query: Why is that so hilarious?) Dulcie Mainwaring, a quiet, whimsical woman who has broken off her engagement to a younger man, hopes to make new friends at the conference. Viola Dace, a bohemian type, dislikes being among the tweedy, but she has a crush on handsome Alwyn Forbes, one of the speakers. When Aylwyn faints at the podium, Dulcie, Viola, and other women rush to provide succor, but Dulcie has the smelling salts.
Dulcie and Viola become friends, sort of: they run into each other in the park, walk past Alywin’s house, which is in the neighborhood, and research his family. They go so far as to spend their Easter holiday at the hotel owned by Alwyn’s mother. Love is in the air, and both are suddenly surrounded by men, but who, if anyone, will get Alwyn?
In Jean Stafford’s neglected classic, The Catherine Wheel, Katharine Congreve is a tougher, more modern type: the American spinster. She has never married and believes in “the pleasure principle” but suddenly faces a sexual crisis. She has had a long affair with John, who married her cousin, Maeve, and even invited her on their honeymoon. Every summer her nephew and nieces stay with her while John and Maeve travel. And now John insists that he wants to divorce Maeve and marry Katharine so she can “save him.” This is not what Katharine had in mind at all when she embarked on an affair.
The Booker Prize winner Anita Brookner is the Co-Queen of Spinster Lit. Her heroines remind me of Barbara Pym’s, though she lacks Pym’s humor. In Brookner’s superb novel, Look at Me, the narrator, Fanny, works in the reference library “of a medical research institute dedicated to the study of problems of human behavior.” (A very Pymish job!) Fanny is also a writer who takes notes every night on the eccentric library staff, including her best friend, an irritable colleague, and the cranky regulars. Writing is her way of saying, “Look at me.” But her life takes a sinister turn when she makes a new friend, who proves to be a dangerous, nasty friend.
On the genre side of spinster lit, I love the spinster detectives in mysteries: Agatha Christie’s amateur sleuth, Miss Marple; Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver ; Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, a sexier, younger, modern, American P.I.; and Ann Cleeve’s Vera Stanhope, a lonely, beer-drinking, obsessive detective. I’m not a great mystery reader, so do tell me some of your favorites.
It is the season to curl up with a cozy book, and all except Jean Stafford’s novel fit that category. So what’s your favorite spinster lit? Or your least favorite, for that matter? And why on earth are we drawn to it?
