Author of GVSU common read will visit West Michigan in March

The author of the GVSU Community Reading Project selection will visit West Michigan in March to discuss her book, "All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation."

Rebecca Traister will visit Grand Valley's Allendale Campus March 13 for a presentation at 7 p.m. in the Kirkhof Center, Grand River Room. This event has been approved for LIB 100/201 courses.

She will be in Holland on March 12 for a presentation at Herrick District Library, 300 S. River St., beginning at 7 p.m. Book signings will follow both presentations.

Published in 2016, "All the Single Ladies" is a study of the political, economic, social and sexual consequences of the rise of unmarried women. Traister, a journalist, started writing the book in 2009, the year the proportion of American women who married dropped below 50 percent, and the median age of first marriages had risen to 27.

Jennifer Jameslyn, director of the Brooks College Office of Integrative Learning and Advising, said the CRP committee was struck by that marriage statistic and the opportunity to open the conversation to students. 

"It’s been amazing to be in conversation with students and faculty and staff all year about these questions of when and why and whether marriage appeals to us, and what we gain and lose when we enter marriage at different points in our lives," Jameslyn said.

Jameslyn said she hopes audience members will better understand marriage as an economic structure and perhaps "they will be inspired to reshape our social and economic structures and our policies to better support single women, particularly single mothers."

"All the Single Ladies" was named a Notable Book of 2016 by the New York Times and Best Books selection by the Boston Globe. Traister is a writer at large for New York Magazine and contributing editor for Elle. Her first book, "Big Girls Don't Cry," was about women and the 2008 election.