Glynnis MacNicol on Marriage, Pleasure, and Orgasmic Narratives

In Glynnis MacNicol’s second memoir, I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself, pleasure is political. The narrative follows the weeks MacNicol spent in Paris in late summer 2021 giving herself over to the enjoyment and excesses of sex, food, art, and friendship. In her first memoir, No One Tells You This, MacNicol grapples with turning 40 as an unmarried and childfree woman. This time, she emphatically embraces that identity while subverting the well-worn self-discovery narratives that pervade memoirs authored by women. What instead follows is an exploration of the sublime told through an inventive structure, a reminder of the possibilities for women’s lives beyond just those passed down to us, and an important addition to the archive of women’s liberation.

I talked with MacNicol about women’s pleasure, the importance of