books

MomsRising, that are already

championing this work. And
she examines the resurgence of
direct actionexemplified by the
Tea Party, the Arab Spring, and
Occupy Wall Streetas potential springboards for taking up
this agenda. Its most striking
when she points to countries and
companies who are successfully
investing in families: America is
far behind other wealthy countries
in adopting common-sense work/
family policies.
How do we stop ghettoizing the work/family debate into
small communities with special
interests, and begin to break
down the walls that separate
women from men, working
moms from stay-at-home moms,
union members from nonunion
workers, the elderly from the
young, and one religious group
from another? It is time to
give the signal to strike up the
band and march in unison. By
making clear to the public how
important these issues arenot
just for women, or for young
people, or for liberals, but for
everyoneKunin thinks we can
finally bridge a broad coalition.
G A B R I E L A S A LV I D E A
PERFECT TIMING: A good read
after Anne-Marie Slaughters
Why Women Still Cant Have It
All essay and before the 2012
presidential election.

Legs Get Led Astray

Chloe Caldwell

{FUTURE TENSE BOOKS}

The essays in Chloe Caldwells

Legs Get Led Astray read like
the most salacious pages of an
older sisters lock-picked diary.
I am starting to feel like a pervert at night, writes Caldwell
in Masturbating with Moxie,
an essay that opens with her
memory of mounting and riding a plush Mickey Mouse as a
5-year-old child. Here, in an act

of confession that comes across

not so much crass as confident,
Caldwell enumerates candidly
the various ways shes learned to
please herself through the years.
Its precisely this kind of sexpositive spin that infuses the better essays in the collection with
this debut authors fresh, not
overly self-conscious feminism.
In Hunger, Caldwell uses body
confidence and eating issues as
the through-line of a story of taking part in an orgy with her best
friend, her then-lover, and a few
of his friends. There are times
I overexert myself sexually just
so I can overeat the next day,
Caldwell writes, ref lecting on the
feeling of post-sex slenderness.
Sex and relationships are
Caldwells best subjects. Perhaps
the best piece in the book,
Yes to Carrots, is written as a
direct address to the girlfriend
of a man with whom Caldwell
had an affair. It captures the
strangeness of being the other
woman particularly well: I went
into a 24-hour Bagel Buffet and
ordered your preferred bageland-cream-cheese combination.
I wanted to see what it would be
like to be your taste buds.
Several other pieces employ
tricky style prompts: One is a
group love letter to Caldwells
past f lames, repeating the
refrain You had me... to address each successive lover;
another with very little payoff is
a collage of Caldwells anecdotal
experiences riding the New York
City subway system (On the 1
train you tell me that you like
to look at different girls hands
on the poles and imagine the
pole as your cock). There does
not seem to be any metric by
which to determine how or why
certain of these pieces work
better than others, but several
read more like private writing
exercises that got slipped into
an otherwise solid manuscript.
Long May You Run, a catalog

Your purchase of this digital edition makes it possible for us to thrive.

of important boys and men

in Caldwells life, organized
and referred to by only their
birthday, is the exception. Here,
Caldwell demonstrates a talent
for detailed characterization and
elliptical prose. Reading this essay, you cant help but fall a little
bit in love with Caldwells voice.
Legs Get Led Astray swells
with a bruised innocence and
self-indulgence reminiscent
of two great story collections
that preceded it: Susan Minots
Lust and Mary Gaitskills Bad
Behavior. Like theirs, Caldwells
is a contemporary slice of sex and
struggle. M O L L Y O S W A K S
GIVE IT TO: The best friend
who knows and keeps all your
juiciest secrets.

Buy It Now: Lessons

from eBay
Michele White

{DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS}

Whatever object a person desires,

he or she can get it on Ebay.
However, as Tulane University
communications associate professor Michele White demonstrates
in her scholarly examination of
the social selling platform, reality
does not live up to that promise.
White argues that Ebays policies,
practices, and structure configure interactions between sellers
and buyers in ways that reinforce
and profit from restrictive stereotypes about gender, sexuality,
and race.
As White notes, Ebay was
founded by Pierre Omidyar
on his belief that people are
basically good. This belief is
articulated through the feedback

Its precisely
this kind of
sex-positive
spin that
infuses the
better essays
in the collection with this
debut authors
fresh, not
overly selfconscious
feminism.
FA L L . 1 2

ISSUE NO.56

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