Title: Two States of Single: Essays on Family, Love and Living Solo
Author: Julie A. Jacob
Genre/page length: Memoir-Essays, 126 pages
Date published/publisher: 2020, Leaping Poodle Press
Two States of Single: Essays on Family, Love, and Living Solo by Julie A. Jacob is a collection of well-crafted, engaging essays. In her opening essay, “Anything You Could Want,” readers meet Jacob’s grandparents, aunts, uncles, sister, and parents as she recounts the parties her mom and dad hosted when she was a child and living in southern Wisconsin. With humor and tender nostalgia, Jacob describes her parents working together as a team to provide a bounty of food and love for the guests who would soon arrive. In this essay, Jacob recognizes a credo by which her family lived: “They knew that life was filled with bumps so they enjoyed themselves while they could.” This theme threads its way throughout her book.
Jacob’s essays continue to follow the arc of her life as she describes her years in Chicago; a daring adventure in Brazil; joining sports clubs for young professionals; buying her own condo, then later on a house; taking a chance on love; caring for her aging parents; and losing her parents. Throughout Jacob hopes to marry and have children, but as the years slip by, neither marriage nor children happen for her. However, her desire to find a soulmate does not drive the book. Instead, what shines through in Jacob’s essays are her decisions to live in the present and to explore new roads rather than waiting for something that may never happen.
Vivid writing and crisp dialogue breathe life into Jacob’s essays. Readers will feel they know the people and places she writes about. Her essays are more than just good stories. They resonate because of Jacob’s ability to convey why each story matters, both to her and to her readers. In memoir writing a writer is supposed to do more than tell an anecdote. The essay needs to answer the question, “So why should I, the reader, care about this?” Jacob’s essays impact readers because as she writes about her past, she answers that question every time. As readers discover why each of these moments are important in Jacob’s life, they are given the gift of being able to do the same with the significant events in their lives.
By the time I finished Jacob’s collection of essays, I found myself longing to meet with a group of fellow readers, sip a good latte, and discuss Jacob’s essays. Her book would make a wonderful nonfiction read for a book club. Because married or single, male or female, we all have stories and insights to share about our choices, careers, loves, family, sorrows, and joys.
Reviewer: Victoria Lynn Smith writes short stories, essays, and a blog. Her short stories "Newlyweds Standing in Front of a Lilac Bush" and "New Boy" won 1st and 3rd place respectively in the 2023 Hal Prize Contest for Fiction. She has been published by Brevity Blog, Wisconsin Public Radio, Hive Literary Journal, Persimmon Tree, Jenny, 45th Parallel, Mason Street Review, 8142 Review, and Rathalla Review, among others. She is currently querying a collection of short stories. She is a member of Wisconsin Writers Association, Lake Superior Writers, Red Oak Writing, and Write On, Door County. Follow her on Instagram: victorialynnsmith_writing
