Thick
And Other Essays
by Tressie McMillan Cottom
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Jan 08 2019 | Archive Date Jan 08 2019
Talking about this book? Use #Thick #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
FINALIST FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
Named a notable book of 2019 by the New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, Time, and The Guardian
As featured by The Daily Show, NPR, PBS, CBC, Time, VIBE, Entertainment Weekly, Well-Read Black Girl, and Chris Hayes, "incisive, witty, and provocative essays" (Publishers Weekly) by one of the "most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time" (Rebecca Traister)
“Thick is sure to become a classic.” —The New York Times Book Review
In eight highly praised treatises on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom—award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed—is unapologetically "thick": deemed "thick where I should have been thin, more where I should have been less," McMillan Cottom refuses to shy away from blending the personal with the political, from bringing her full self and voice to the fore of her analytical work. Thick "transforms narrative moments into analyses of whiteness, black misogyny, and status-signaling as means of survival for black women" (Los Angeles Review of Books) with "writing that is as deft as it is amusing" (Darnell L. Moore).
This "transgressive, provocative, and brilliant" (Roxane Gay) collection cements McMillan Cottom's position as a public thinker capable of shedding new light on what the "personal essay" can do. She turns her chosen form into a showcase for her critical dexterity, investigating everything from Saturday Night Live, LinkedIn, and BBQ Becky to sexual violence, infant mortality, and Trump rallies.
Collected in an indispensable volume that speaks to the everywoman and the erudite alike, these unforgettable essays never fail to be "painfully honest and gloriously affirming" and hold "a mirror to your soul and to that of America" (Dorothy Roberts).
Advance Praise
“To say this collection is transgressive, provocative, and brilliant is simply to tell you the truth. Thick is a necessary work and a reminder that Tressie McMillan Cottom is one of the finest public intellectuals writing today.”
—Roxane Gay, author of Hunger and Bad Feminist
“Thick is gorgeous, incisive, and hard. Tressie McMillan Cottom is among America's most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time and she is at her very best here. These essays enlighten and complicate and push conversations further. They are blisteringly smart and beautifully written. They are also, simply, a pleasure to read.”
—Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad and All the Single Ladies
“Black women are uniquely attuned to the hydra that bell hooks names the imperialist
white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Publics should trust black women. Thick
proves why readers should trust Tressie McMillan Cottom’s Black-people-loving writing that is as deft as it is amusing.
Her words are a sword. She comes out swinging her blade at the hydra’s head with unmatched courage.”
"These essays show us the potency of actually existing Black feminist analysis and expose the deep structures of racism and inequality that shape most Black women’s lives. With biting humor and razor-sharp political clarity, Thick is a crucial contribution to contemporary Black thought."
—Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From
#BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781620974360 |
| PRICE | $24.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 224 |
Featured Reviews
Dora Archie O, Reviewer
Now, this book right here is the book I see myself reading when I am old and grey and still going “you’ve got that right!” It is in essay form, but does not shy away from a stark memoir. Honestly speaking, it is what it is, and that’s unapologetic, true, bold, harsh, nostalgic-and just like the title, it is thick! I would review this book everyday if it were up to me, because it is not the kind that you read and turn the page.
It is profound in calling out the stereotypes we subscribe to, our perceptions, our socio-economic status and as a young black woman, what’s written herein is something I have experienced yet I am miles away in another continent.
It goes beyond the value society places on a black woman, and dissects the lies we tell ourselves in our desire to conform to something that devalues us.
I love this book and I look forward to having a hardcover copy for my library because I want to read this years on, to stir up conversations with young women like me here.
Thank you Netgalley for the eARC.
Readers who liked this book also liked:
Publishers Lunch
General Fiction (Adult), Nonfiction (Adult), Teens & YA
