![]() The book examines the slippery and uneasy subjects of inequality, wealth, power, and work. Just like in her other works, Having and Being Had makes the invisible visible. She uses the form of the essay to interrogate, break apart, and complicate something in order to make it fully known and understood. Yet Biss is not only unafraid of taboo, she leans into it. One of the troubles with taboos is they’re often so uncomfortable that our avoidance of them makes them invisible. For her new book, Having and Being Had , the searing image is the juxtaposition of Biss herself, a homeowner and successful writer, against her mother, who struggles to stay in the middle class: "She still has white privilege, but she often doesn't have hot water." In On Immunity: An Inoculation, it is the image of the vampire as a reflection of societal anxieties about disease that still lurks in my memory, especially as a pandemic now rages. ![]() ![]() In her first book, Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays , a telephone pole transforms from a nuisance and a symbol of communication to the chosen stage for the horrific lynching of African Americans across the country. ![]()
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