โ[A] deliciously dry, moody essay collectionโ about Americaโs obsession with violence against women is โa lyrical meditationโ (Carina Chocano, New York Times Book Review).
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 menโs 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 โ both the persistent injustices they suffer and the oppression that white women help perpetrate.
โBracing and blazingly smart.โ โMegan Abbott, Edgar Awardโwinning author of You Will Know Me
โThe cultural criticism serves to help us all think a little bit more about what weโre consumingโand whoโs being damaged by it.โ โEntertainment Weekly
โ[A] sharp-eyed book of essays.โ โWashington Post
โWise and wonderful.โ โRobin Wasserman, author of Girls on Fire
โEngrossing . . . eerily enthralling, systematically on point, and quite funny . . . An illuminating study on the role women play in the media and in their own lives.โ โKirkus Reviews (starred review)
โSmart, thorough, and urgent, Bolinโs essays are a force to be reckoned with.โ โBooklist