Waveform

November 1, 2016
Essays by 30 contemporary women writers whose work has helped remake the nonfiction literary landscape.In this collection, Aldrich (English/Michigan State Univ.; Companion to an Untold Story, 2012, etc.) shows how women writers have transformed the essay into a "shape-shifting thing...[that] can do many turns, take on any subject and assume any structure demanded by the writer's aims and the requirements of the materials she wields." Toward that end, the editor has selected pieces from bestselling nonfiction writers like Cheryl Strayed and Leslie Jamison as well as work by lesser-known, but no less talented, individuals such as cultural anthropologist/women's rights advocate Adriana Paramo and San Francisco chef Dana Tommasino. The essays are mostly personal in content. What distinguishes each is the manner in which the writer manipulates form to tell her story. In the opening essay, "Tiny Beautiful Things," Strayed writes a brief second-person account--in the guise of Rumpus advice columnist Sugar--to her 20-something self about the small things (like concerns about her weight) that she should have ignored and the small things (an imperfect gift from a soon-to-be-dead mother) that she should have honored. In "This is How I Spell My Body," Paramo considers her various body parts--from ass to zygomatic bone--in light of her relationship to men. Tommasino merges the language of fact and poetry into a fluid, lyric whole in "birdbreath, twin, synonym," her chronologically fragmented meditation on the twin ex-convict brother from whom she has grown apart. "In Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain," Jamison considers the topic of female pain by examining the various forms of self- and other-inflicted wounds that both famous and ordinary people have experienced. Aldrich's collection not only rides the "new wave" in nonfiction essay writing with bravura, intelligence, and sensitivity. It also reveals the depth and vastness of the contemporary female literary ocean that produced it. Other contributors include Meghan Daum, Roxane Gay, Eula Biss, and Margo Jefferson. Eclectic and always engaging.

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September 26, 2016
Aldrich (Girl Rearing: Memoir of a Girlhood Gone Astray) compiles this collection of 30 essays by women, with highlights from Cheryl Strayed, Leslie Jamison, Roxane Gay, and Eula Biss. The works largely explore an evocative, corporeal landscape (break-ups, eating disorders, sex, racism, self-mutilation, drug addiction, domestic violence, rape, foster care, and childbirth) with occasional forays into academic territory (there are pieces on the work of Joan Didion, Vladimir Nabokov, William Shakespeare, and Susan Sontag, among others). In her preface, Aldrich praises “the diversity of women’s approaches to the structure of the essay.” Not all of the markedly inventive approaches are successful—overcommitment to theme or experiment causes some of the essays to stumble—but Strayed’s ability to unleash witty compassion is unflagging, as is the quality of Biss’s prose, which is so intelligent and generous that it both nettles and soothes. A few contributors struggle with their discussions of identity politics, writing with overeager verbosity. Half of the essays are original to the collection. The writing varies wildly from piece to piece, but there is plenty that stands out as wise, beautiful, and unforgettable.

November 1, 2016
Editor Aldrich (Girl Rearing, 1998) has collected essays that span the personal and political by 30 contemporary women, with Roxane Gay, Cheryl Strayed, Jaquira Diaz, and Eula Biss among them. The book takes advantage of the essay format by encompassing a wide range of styles. Some essays take the form of memoir, a few others are epistles, yet another realizes itself as a list, and one essay borrows from the graphic genre. A few essays experiment with form and piece together streams of consciousness; one essay strings together headlines that focus on violence to women. This collection offers something for every reader, whether one seeks the calm of a contemplative voice or the catharsis of anger. Lengths of essays vary widely, too: one writer offers a terse yet poetic recollection of childhood, horror, and love in the space of a page and a half. Another writer unravels a lengthy and wide-ranging exploration of pain and women's relationship to it. It's all here, just as it should be: birth, death, sex, longing, regret, anger, love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)