Why We Can't Sleep (Calhoun)

Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis
Ada Calhoun, 2002
Grove/Atlantic Press
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802147851


Summary
A generation-defining exploration of the new midlife crisis facing Gen X women and the unique circumstances that have brought them to this point, Why We Can’t Sleep is a lively successor to Passages by Gail Sheehy and The Defining Decade by Meg Jay.

When Ada Calhoun found herself in the throes of a midlife crisis, she thought that she had no right to complain. She was married with children and a good career.

So why did she feel miserable? And why did it seem that other Generation X women were miserable, too?

Calhoun decided to find some answers.

She looked into housing costs, HR trends, credit card debt averages, and divorce data. At every turn, she saw a pattern: sandwiched between the Boomers and the Millennials, Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age, problems that were being largely overlooked.

Speaking with women across America about their experiences as the generation raised to "have it all," Calhoun found that most were exhausted, terrified about money, under-employed, and overwhelmed. Instead of being heard, they were told instead to lean in, take "me-time," or make a chore chart to get their lives and homes in order.

In Why We Can’t Sleep, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X’s predicament and offers solutions for how to pull oneself out of the abyss—and keep the next generation of women from falling in.

The result is reassuring, empowering, and essential reading for all middle-aged women, and anyone who hopes to understand them. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Ada Calhoun is the author of the memoir Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, named an Amazon Book of the Month and one of the top ten memoirs of 2017 by W magazine; and the history St. Marks Is Dead, one of the best books of 2015, according to Kirkus and the Boston Globe. She has collaborated on several New York Times bestsellers, and written for the New York Times, New York Magazine, and New Republic. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
[It] grew out of an article for O Magazine that went viral, so perhaps it’s facile to say that it reads like a book that grew out of an article ... The results of this format are mixed. Some statistics feel cherry-picked or just hard to prove…. By contrast, the economic and labor statistics are both convincing and sobering…. Calhoun’s essential premise is highly persuasive.…. [T]here are pleasures to be had in the familiar pop cultural references and the darkly amusing anecdotes…. Ultimately, however, so many women appear that they blur together…. I wished Calhoun had included fewer women’s stories but gone into those stories in greater detail.
Curtis Sittenfeld - New York Times Book Review


The book makes a powerful argument to Gen X women…. Calhoun speaks directly to her own generation, peppering the book with so many specific cultural touchstones, from the Challenger explosion to Koosh balls to the slime-filled TV show Double Dare, 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.
Emily Bobrow - Wall Street Journal


[A]sprint through everything—and I mean everything—that is bothering Generation X women…. [A] remarkably slender and breezy book…. Reading Why We Can’t Sleep is like attending a party where the hostess didn’t want to leave anyone off the list: It’s noisy, crowded and everyone remains a stranger. And they’re all complaining.… The advice is common-sensical, a little corny and hardly a panacea for the multitude of problems she’s spent the previous 200 pages describing…. But the final chapter is the most accessible and engaging in the book. Calhoun’s ambitious wide-angle shot of Gen X midlife malaise is blurry and overwhelming. Paradoxically, when she zeroes in on a specific woman with a first and last name, a strong voice, and a textured backstory—herself—that larger picture starts to come into focus.
Jennifer Reese - Washington Post


[A]n engaging hybrid of first-person confession, reportage, pop culture analysis, and statistics… it aspires to something larger than memoir.
New Republic


[B]racing, empowering study…. Calhoun persuasively reassures Gen X women that they can find a way out of their midlife crises by “facing up to our lives as they really are.” Women of every generation will find much to relate to in this humorous yet pragmatic account.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred revicw) Built on personal narratives and research-based data,… Calhoun asks why she and others continue to feel miserable despite traditional markers of success…. Her research offers women ways to look at but not devalue their own experiences . —Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
Library Journal


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.
Booklist


Calhoun argues that Generation X women find middle age harder than those older or younger. … [and] that aging inevitably means that some life choices are no longer viable. An occasionally amusing and insightful but scattershot exploration of midlife woes.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for WHY WE CAN'T SLEEP … then take off on your own:

1. How closely (if at all) do you relate to the central concerns and issues laid out in Calhoun's book? In other words, do you have trouble sleeping through the night? Even though the book is written for Gen Xers, if you're a  Millennial or a Boomer, does Why Can't We Sleep still speak to you?

2. Given the many women Calhoun has interviewed for this book, and their many problems, are there some you find particularly sympathetic? How similar are some of these women's issues to yours? Is the large number of people included in the book helpful or too diverting?

3. Calhoun also includes societal economic data in her work, as well as financial woes at the household level. Is the inclusion of these observations and statistics creditable? Do the facts bolster her argument? Which of her arguments do you find most persuasive… and which less so?

4. The ’70s and ’80s "was a rough time to be a kid," Calhoun writes. "The economy was sinking, crime was spiking, nuclear war was plausible, divorce rates were soaring and helicopter parenting was anomalous. Many of us knew about AIDS long before we had sex, and we watched the Challenger explode on live TV." How much do you recall of that era? Is Calhoun correct—did that time make for a hard childhood?

5. Some of the anecdotes Calhoun recounts are humorous, even if on the dark side. Can you point to a few?

6. Many, if not most, of the women Calhoun includes in her book tend to be "well-educated, middle- and upper-middle-class" women—which might make their problems easy to dismiss, or even to disparage. What do you think? Do their troubles seem serious or trivial to you? Or something in between?

7. What do you think of the advice Calhoun provides, her tips for curing a midlife crisis? Do you agree with her recommendations? Do you have any suggestions of your own to add?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)