Adrienne Salinger
Despite one in seven Americans living alone, being single is still viewed with a combination of suspicion and pity. Yet many people love and choose to live along. Salinger’s subjects run the gamut from those forced into singlehood by the death of family or a spouse to those who consider themselves loners and how they revel in their status. Each photo encapsulates the subject in their home. However, the page-long statements accompanying each image span topics from why the subject lives alone to scientology, the Holocaust, Marxism, sex, art and children. While clearly cut from longer interviews, these statements show how people living alone don’t fit any particular stereo-typical mold. Also, if the photos are to believed, single men often wear ugly shoes and single women have ugly pillows. But perhaps I am reading too much into the photos.