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Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession

by Alice Bolin
Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession

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ISBN13: 9780062657145
ISBN10: 0062657143
Condition: Standard


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Staff Pick

We all know the Dead Girl. She's the reason for the story, but rarely the focus. Instead she's a prop, a symbol, a fetish, a harbinger, or a means to an end. Bolin deftly explores this morbid phenomenon in the first section of her vital new essay collection. From there, she goes on to (among other things) challenge Joan Didion's iconic but problematic portraits of Southern California, reveals the subtle brilliance of seemingly banal pop hits, and considers hypochondria as a psychological manifestation of overwhelming existential dread. Dead Girls takes the world we see and reveals the strangeness under the surface, the menace hiding beneath the ordinary.  Recommended By Lauren P., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

“Dead Girls is everything I want in an essay collection: provocative lines of inquiry, macabre humor, blistering intelligence... I love this book.” — Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties

"Bracing and blazingly smart, Alice Bolin's Dead Girls could hardly be more needed or more timely.” — Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of You Will Know Me

Best of summer 2018 – included on best-of lists by Bitch Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, The Millions, Esquire, Refinery29, Nylon, PopSugar, The Chicago Tribune, Book Riot, and CrimeReads

In this poignant collection, Alice Bolin examines iconic American works from the essays of Joan Didion and James Baldwin to Twin Peaks, Britney Spears, and Serial, illuminating the widespread obsession with women who are abused, killed, and disenfranchised, and whose bodies (dead and alive) are used as props to bolster men’s stories. Smart and accessible, thoughtful and heartfelt, Bolin investigates the implications of our cultural fixations, and her own role as a consumer and creator.

Bolin chronicles her life in Los Angeles, dissects the Noir, revisits her own coming of age, and analyzes stories of witches and werewolves, both appreciating and challenging the narratives we construct and absorb every day. Dead Girls begins by exploring the trope of dead women in fiction, and ends by interrogating the more complex dilemma of living women – both the persistent injustices they suffer and the oppression that white women help perpetrate.

Reminiscent of the piercing insight of Rebecca Solnit and the critical skill of Hilton Als, Bolin constructs a sharp, perceptive, and revelatory dialogue on the portrayal of women in media and their roles in our culture.

Review

“Along with some incisive commentary on the role of pop stars, noir fiction, and the privileged nature of Joan Didion’s ‘glamorous desperation,’ Bolin delves into her own process and what it means to create as a female artist.” Harpers Bazaar

Review

“Bracing and blazingly smart, Alice Bolin’s Dead Girls could hardly be more needed or more timely. A critical contribution to the cultural discussion of gender and genre, Los Angeles and noir, the unbearable persistence of the male gaze and the furtive potency of female rage.” Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of You Will Know Me

Review

“I loved this book with reckless abandon. Alice Bolin tracks our societal fixation with violence against young women through an astonishing variety of cultural landscapes… An irresistible read. It’s wise and wonderful and I plan to press it on everyone I know.” Robin Wasserman, author of Girls on Fire

Review

“Everything I want in an essay collection: provocative lines of inquiry, macabre humor, blistering intelligence. I love this book. I want to take it into the middle of a crowded room and hold it up and scream until someone tackles me the ground; even then, I’d probably keep screaming.” Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties

About the Author

Alice Bolin's nonfiction has appeared in many publications including ELLE, the Awl, the LA Review of Books, Salon, VICE's Broadly, The Paris Review Daily, and The New Yorker's Page-Turner blog. She currently teaches creative nonfiction at the University of Memphis.

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`
Reading.BetweentheWines , June 28, 2018 (view all comments by Reading.BetweentheWines)
I picked up this book as a True Crime newbie, a recent Twin Peaks dan and a #murderino and I decided to take my time with this one. This is a nonfiction essay collection, all written by the same author. It is not a page turning fiction-like true crime novel, but rather a set of essays all written on different ideas and ways to examine and question our society’s obsession with Dead Girl stories. At least that’s how it’s been presented, but it’s a little bit more... I loved a line the author threw in at the beginning, I think it’s a great description of the book: “I have tried to make something about women from stories that were always about men.” Bolin sheds light on many parts of our society and why women’s stories are framed the way that they are. However, while some of these essays (so far) really hit the mark for me and made me want to dig in whole heartedly, some are reading more like memoirs with stories and references I’m just not resonating with. While this isn’t a feel good, amusing read, I think it is an important one and Bolin expertly makes the taboo subject of women’s stories andthe spotlight, which is so utterly important. This timely, relevant book made me feel like I was back in college, taking the best women’s studies class that never existed, and I’m not complaining! Don’t read this one for entertainment value, or under the impression that it will solely surround stories about fictional Dead Girls, but I think you should probably still read it.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780062657145
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
06/26/2018
Publisher:
WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY INC
Pages:
288
Height:
.70IN
Width:
5.40IN
Author:
Alice Bolin

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$10.95
List Price:$15.99
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