"How To Be Single" a Novel by Liz Tuccillo

I was browsing the Bargain Books section of the Marketplace Barnes & Noble recently when a provocative title caught my eye, How to Be Single, by Liz Tuccillo.  I'd recognized the author's name as the female half of the duo who a few years ago penned that enormously popular self-help book He's Just Not That Into You, a terribly boring read of self-evident relationship advice that had amazingly garnered some sort of award (I think it was the Quill Award in the Health/Self Improvement category) and was later adapted into a clever romantic comedy of misread expectations between the sexes I found  surprisingly enjoyable.  Just the week before, I'd seen her literary other half, Greg Behrendt, perform at the Irvine Improv.  His foul-mouthed stand-up routine made me long for clean comedy.  I'd come away totally disappointed and debated whether I should take a chance with Tuccillo's book considering how I felt about her friend/co-author.  Fortunately, my excitement for bargain books eventually overcame my initial reservations.  How to Be Single turned out to be a delightful, breezy read.

The book's title reminded me of an incident a few summers ago when I was looking to re-read the first novel in the Lindsay Graves trilogy, To Catch a Husband.  To Keep a Husband, the sequel to the original novel, had just come out and I'd wanted to refresh my memory of Graves' desperate housewives characters before delving into the second installment of their continued saga within the well-heeled (but fictional) Southern Cal enclave of Colina Linda.  Instead of braving my dusty garage in search of my own copy of the book, I decided it'd be easier to visit the Tustin Library instead.  The unsmiling lady at the circulation desk curtly informed me after performing a quick computer search that her branch didn't carry that title.  "I'm positive you do," I protested, "I saw it on display near the check-out line last week, but it was a long line and I thought I could come back for it another time.  Could you look the book up by the author's name instead?  It's Lindsay Graves."  After reluctantly fidgeting with her keyboard some more, the lady told me she'd found the novel in question.  The reason her original search turned up empty was because she'd typed in "How To Catch a Husband!" as the book's title.

I could feel myself reddening and although I was fairly certain I didn't emanate desperate vibes that could be picked up by strangers, it was still disconcerting to realize the librarian had conveniently assumed I was looking for a self-help tome with so transparent a message.  After that incident, I became a little paranoid even when searching for books online.  For example, I'd casually looked up To Kill a Husband a number of times before, but now I was careful enough to add "a novel by Lindsay Graves" in my search box just in case!  If anything should happen to my ex and some Javert-type detective came up with my computer search history, the incriminating "evidence" would look very damning indeed.  Just send the hapless ex-wife straight to prison and don't even bother with the trial!



Getting back to "How to Be Single", the word "How" in the book's title was somewhat misleading, as this novel definitely belonged to the chick-lit fiction genre I generally favored and not a self-help guide.  How to Be Single actually translated to "How Any Woman Is Single" (as in the individual circumstances that conspired to keep the poor thing from attaining coupledom), and its subtext a cumulative lesson on How to Be Single Without Doubting Yourself and Your Luck, How to Be Single Without Hating the Opposite Sex, How to Be Single Without Feeling Beaten Down and Losing Hope, How to Be Single Without Becoming Desperate and Sacrificing Your Dignity, and finally, How to Be Single Without Turning Deranged Eventually.

Which is a tremendously difficult thing to do when you're hitting forty and living in a city famed for its cruelty to unattached women!  The girl posse in the novel comprised of New Yorkers Julie Jensen, a single 38 year-old book-publicist-turned-writer who, despite being sucky at romance (or maybe because of it) successfully convinced her editor to give her the plum assignment of traveling the world in research for writing a book about how women of all nationalities were coping with their single status; Julie's friend Georgia, a newly-single mom of two whose missteps in the love department were equally tragic and hilarious; Alice, a Legal Aid attorney whose solution to the single curse was to quit her job and devote herself full-time to dating with a capital D; Serena, a kind-and-gentle soul who mistakenly believed she'd stumbled upon love after prematurely relinquishing all hopes to become a sannyasin; and Ruby, a depressed single searching for her object of affection in a cold and unfeeling metropolitan.

The book is funniest precisely at those moments when our heroines, one by one, totally lost their emotional moorings and descended into the collective pit of despondency and humiliation:

– The Rio Incident, when Julie was admonished by a bikini saleswoman for having cellulite.

– The Whole Foods Incident, when Georgia angrily confronted "Grocery Guy" for not calling her after getting her number from their chance meeting at the supermarket vegetable aisle.

– The Elopement That Never Was, when Alice impulsively proposed to her Nice Guy, Jim, only to successively cancel their wedding that almost turned into an elopement upon realizing she couldn't force herself to settle.

– The Bad Karma incident, when Serena became unraveled and hysterically disruptive at the Jayananda Center upon discovering her hot swami was sharing his "enlightenment" with other disciples besides her.

– The Love Substitute train wreck, when Ruby attempted to distract herself from the loud ticking of her biological clock by volunteering at the animal's shelter at the expense of her mental health and, eventually capitulating, begged around pathetically for sperm donations from her uncooperative gay friends.

I don't want to give too much of the story away... you can buy the book and find out the rest.  I got my hardcover title at Barnes & Noble for only $5.98.  No need to wait for the paperback version.

A view from the other side of the fence:

http://www.momlogic.com/2009/01/i_miss_being_single_and_depres.php

How to Be Single, the Book:

http://howtobesinglethebook.com/

How to Be Single, the World Wide Webisodes:

http://howtobesinglethebook.com/video/