New York Times bestselling author John Searles worked at Cosmopolitan for 23 years and became friends with its founding editor at the end of her career, the iconic Helen Gurley Brown.

Searles’ latest novel, SINGLE GIRLS, opens with the gruesome death of Helen’s father, Ira. The devastating impact on her life is both an impetus for her to make something of herself and a damper on her expectations of finding true happiness. The plot quickly moves to Helen’s early days at Cosmopolitan, a magazine in search of an audience. Her then-boss at Hearst offers her the chance to turn it around in three issues or risk the likelihood of being fired. She succeeds beyond the rosiest forecasts, assembling a team of like-minded but distinctive women along the way. 

"Searles makes the ending of SINGLE GIRLS dramatic and --- as it concludes on New Year’s Eve, when the 1970s are about to be ushered in --- circular... It’s a satisfying place to leave not just the novel’s characters, but also the decade that defines them."

Real-life characters in the story include Liz Smith, who was an editor at Cosmo before she started her syndicated gossip column in the mid-1970s, and Francesco Scavullo, who photographed the covers of the magazine for decades.

The staff discussions give readers a sense of how transformative life must have been for women in the 1960s. The pill had just been introduced, along with the Equal Pay Act, and books like THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE and, of course, Helen’s SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL had been published. But traditional attitudes remain, in the office and in society, especially around women and their sexuality. At times the Cosmo staff seems to debate the era's contradictions in witty shorthand:

“I worry someday people will look back and wonder what the hell we were thinking.”

“I already wonder about that sometimes.”

“The Jello-O molds”

“The miniskirts…”

“Well, I’d say their lives, whatever they’re like, would seem as strange to us.”

Although it seems as if they are rooted in their era, throughout the book Searles slyly anticipates a future generation’s response.

By interweaving the scenes of Helen’s rise to power as an icon of the New Woman with episodes from her childhood and coming of age in Los Angeles, Searles gives his subject a depth that is by turns poignant and tragic. Not only is her father killed in a freak accident, her sister contracts polio as a teen. Her mother moves the family from Arkansas to L.A. to be near Ira’s brother, but she has to work several jobs to support them. 

Helen feels guilty about it all. When she is finally able to leave, she moves to New York and meets and marries film producer David Brown. He encourages her to write and publish SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL, which sells two million copies in three weeks and lands her the Cosmo job. 

Searles makes the ending of SINGLE GIRLS dramatic and --- as it concludes on New Year’s Eve, when the 1970s are about to be ushered in --- circular, so that the tribulations of the early years are resolved. It’s a satisfying place to leave not just the novel’s characters, but also the decade that defines them.