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I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself: One Woman's Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris
“A delight, the literary equivalent of a long catch-up with a brilliant friend.” —New York Times
“One of the most talked-about books of the year.” —Gayle King
When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie?
Come to Paris, August 2021, when the City of Lights was still empty of tourists and a thirst for long-overdue pleasure gripped those who wandered its streets.
After New York City emptied out in March 2020, Glynnis MacNicol, aged forty-six, unmarried with no children, spent sixteen months alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment. The isolation was punishing. A year without touch. Women are warned of invisibility as they age, but this was an extreme loneliness no one can prepare you for. When the opportunity to sublet a friend’s apartment in Paris arose, MacNicol jumped on it. Leaving felt less like a risk than a necessity.
What follows is a decadent, joyful, unexpected journey into one woman’s pursuit of radical enjoyment.
The weeks in Paris are filled with friendship and food and sex. There is dancing on the Seine; a plethora of gooey cheese; midnight bike rides through empty Paris; handsome men; afternoons wandering through the empty Louvre; nighttime swimming in the ocean off a French island. And yes, plenty of nudity.
In the spirit of Nora Ephron and Deborah Levy (think Colette . . . if she’d had access to dating apps), I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is an intimate, insightful, powerful, and endlessly pleasurable memoir of an intensely lived experience whose meaning and insight expand far beyond the personal narrative. MacNicol is determined to document the beauty, excess, and triumph of a life that does not require permission.
The pursuit of enjoyment is a political act, both a right and a responsibility. Enjoying yourself—as you are—is not something the world tells you is possible, but it is.
Here’s the proof.
“One of the most talked-about books of the year.” —Gayle King
When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie?
Come to Paris, August 2021, when the City of Lights was still empty of tourists and a thirst for long-overdue pleasure gripped those who wandered its streets.
After New York City emptied out in March 2020, Glynnis MacNicol, aged forty-six, unmarried with no children, spent sixteen months alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment. The isolation was punishing. A year without touch. Women are warned of invisibility as they age, but this was an extreme loneliness no one can prepare you for. When the opportunity to sublet a friend’s apartment in Paris arose, MacNicol jumped on it. Leaving felt less like a risk than a necessity.
What follows is a decadent, joyful, unexpected journey into one woman’s pursuit of radical enjoyment.
The weeks in Paris are filled with friendship and food and sex. There is dancing on the Seine; a plethora of gooey cheese; midnight bike rides through empty Paris; handsome men; afternoons wandering through the empty Louvre; nighttime swimming in the ocean off a French island. And yes, plenty of nudity.
In the spirit of Nora Ephron and Deborah Levy (think Colette . . . if she’d had access to dating apps), I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is an intimate, insightful, powerful, and endlessly pleasurable memoir of an intensely lived experience whose meaning and insight expand far beyond the personal narrative. MacNicol is determined to document the beauty, excess, and triumph of a life that does not require permission.
The pursuit of enjoyment is a political act, both a right and a responsibility. Enjoying yourself—as you are—is not something the world tells you is possible, but it is.
Here’s the proof.
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Community Reviews
I was really looking forward to this book, and when it was available at the library I dropped everything to read it. I can't emphasize how disappointing it is this did not live up to my expectations!!
I only got a few chapters in and couldn't take the narrator's tone any more. I am childfree by choice and love hearing about the lives of other childfree women, but there was an abrasive edge to how the speaker describes her status that irked me. By all means, let's celebrate women who have the luxury to make the choice to not be mothers, but there is no need for pomp in the process.
There was also an air of self-pity that made me want gag. Some people need real problems, I guess?
Bleh, bleh, bleh, DNF, you will not ruin Paris for me, woman!!!!!
I only got a few chapters in and couldn't take the narrator's tone any more. I am childfree by choice and love hearing about the lives of other childfree women, but there was an abrasive edge to how the speaker describes her status that irked me. By all means, let's celebrate women who have the luxury to make the choice to not be mothers, but there is no need for pomp in the process.
There was also an air of self-pity that made me want gag. Some people need real problems, I guess?
Bleh, bleh, bleh, DNF, you will not ruin Paris for me, woman!!!!!
Enjoyed it. I liked the ideas she explored and her reflecting on what it means to be living a story that hasn't really been told before -- a childless, single woman in her forties who is flourishing. I also appreciated her takes on aging, on the what if's, on the thorny, familiar grooves of hindsight. Also, I miss Paris.
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