On the Loose: Big-City Days and Nights of Three Single Women Hardcover - 1999

From the publisher

Everyone is fascinated with the plight of the single girl -- look at the success of Bridget Jone's Diary, unforgettable "Elaine" of Seinfeld fame, and the new HBO series Sex and the City. On the page and the screen, these women make dates, pursue careers, and wonder about their ticking biological clock, all with humor and tenacity. But does this reflect women's lives today in the real world?

Journalist Melissa Roth followed three young women for one year, to find out the truth. They are of the "Free to Be" generation but the mantra of The Rules hums through their daily lives: Jen a 29-year-old Hollywood producer, thrives on whirlwind days and nights but sometimes longs for the simpler pleasures of her hometown. Anna a 31-year-old advertising executive in San Francisco who married right out of college, struggles in a wry Nora Ephron-esque manner with her divorce, her job, and sex with her new boyfriends; and Casey; 33, finds calm through yoga, stimulation through late nights with rock bands (it's her job), and fury when her boyfriend reveals he's somebody else's husband.

Roth gathers together their tales of the wrong men and near-perfect romances, promotions and unemployment, sushi lessons and the New Year's Eve flu to skillfully create a three-pronged narrative that reads like a lively novel. Smart, enormously witty, and candid, the women reveal that single life offers the most amazing sense of freedom they've ever known.