How We Live Now

May 4, 2015
DePaulo’s cross-country survey of living arrangements shatters the illusion that the average American belongs to a nuclear family living in a single-family home in the suburbs. In co-housing communities along the West Coast, she discovers that residents of all generations have found happiness in common gardens and shared meals. Meanwhile, seniors have become “lifespace” pioneers, eschewing institutions and creating their own senior communities, sometimes with juniors involved as well. In Chicago, foster families and older adults enrich one another’s lives in the appropriately named Hope Meadows. Other lifestyle approaches and strategies covered here include house sharing, finding social networks (not necessarily in the online sense), and keeping a home separately from one’s partner. DePaolo’s descriptions of these living arrangements are punctuated with quotes from her extensive interviews with “the people who let me into their homes and their lives,” providing the book with a wide range of voices. If it falls short of a call for inspiring urban planners, architects, and developers to think differently, it is because the book is, by design, an exploration of personal choice and expression. Agent: Melissa Flashman, Trident Media.

Starred review from June 1, 2015
An eye-opening survey of the different living arrangements Americans have come to embrace. As a proponent of living alone, DePaulo admits, "I don't want to live with any other humans of any age." Yet she finds high levels of satisfaction among those whose living arrangements deviate from what was once considered the social norm. That norm might be an aberration at a time when people are marrying later (if at all), living longer and healthier, and trying to strike a balance between privacy and community. "Americans are living the new happily ever after," she writes. "They are living with people they care about, sharing meals, indulging in the comforting ritual of how-was-your-day exchanges and spending holidays together. The 'new' part is that the people with whom they are sharing homes and lives may not be just spouses and romantic partners." They may be single parents who have come together through "CoAbode, an online matching service for single mothers looking to share a home with other single mothers." They may span multiple generations of the same family. They may be older people, widowed or divorced, who seek community and perhaps even romance but without marriage. They may be communities that share common areas-dining, lawns-but have individual living spaces and finances that distinguish them from the communes of old. The author admits that her book is "biased" toward those who have found happiness and that those who seek out such arrangements are a self-selected lot to begin with. But if those who have found tension or trouble in sharing space with former strangers are given short shrift, the book nevertheless builds a compelling case that "in twenty-first century America, individuals are freer than they have ever been before. They are no longer tied to predetermined courses in which marrying, having kids, and staying married are obligatory." An informative and inspirational guide to the myriad ways of making a home.

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August 1, 2015
Get ready to reimagine what might be considered typical when it comes to how people choose to settle down and whom they choose to live with now. As social scientist and writer DePaulo discovered after conducting nationwide interviews, men and women of all ages are finding original ways to meet their particular domestic needs, and some of their solutions may lead to lasting social change. In eight comprehensive sections, she presents detailed descriptions of new lifestyles growing in popularity across all demographics. Covering just about every configuration that seems possible, from small to large groups bonded by friendship to nontraditional families to people connected by a common purpose, she finds amazing examples of new communities being designed to accommodate contemporary concerns and interests. DePaulo combines the experiences of real people with expert analysis in her discussion of the benefits and difficulties in these creative arrangements. The inventive options she illuminates are fascinating and will interest everyone who enjoys observing human nature. They should also inspire thoughtful debate, as the heretofore unconventional is fast becoming the new normal.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)