From Publishers Weekly
Essay lovers can take heart. There's a new voice in the fray, and it belongs to a talented young writer. In this collection of (largely previously published) on-target analyses of American culture, Daum offers the disapproval of youth, leavened with pithy humor and harsh self-appraisal . In each essay, she sustains interest with a good story and pricks the reader's conscience with observations that reverberate personally, whether about the secret desires of Christian women or the stunning ease of accumulating debt while existing unluxuriously in New York City. Publishing veterans will be amused and chagrined to see their profession skewered in "Publishing and Other Near-Death Experiences"; and for a hard take on one's responsibility for mourning, there is the book's best work, "Variation on Grief." Daum's decidedly agnostic outlook sometimes makes for easy moral outs, and time may render her phrasings cute. While her main premise that many Americans live "not actual lives but simulations of lives... via the trinkets on our shelves" leaves room for disagreement, on the whole, readers will enjoy an edgy read. (Mar. 15) Forecast: Daum's pieces have appeared in traditional magazines like the New Yorker, as well as in cutting-edge venues like Nerve, and have earned her a considerable reputation as a sharp Gen-X voice. Review attention and good word-of-mouth should earn this book brisk sales. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This eclectic collection of essays delves into the corners of contemporary life, ferreting out the eccentric as well as the ordinary. Readers can identify with Daum's disdain for carpeting or her difficulty living within her means on New York's Upper West Side while working at a low-paying publishing job. On a less familiar note is an essay exploring the lifestyle of a group in California who call their communal way of life "polyamory," a brand of free love reminiscent of the 1960s. Not shy about implicating herself, Daum plunges into such thorny issues as an Internet romance and her inability to mourn a friend's death, along with her irritation at his superficial, enabling parents. A regular contributor to National Public Radio, Daum writes essays and articles appearing in major publications including The New Yorker, Harper's, New York Times, GQ, Self, and Vogue. Her work demonstrates honesty and an ability to look perceptively at herself and contemporary life. Daum's is a provocative and refreshing new voice. Recommended for larger public libraries. Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Publishers Weekly, December 18, 2000, Starred Review
ÒEssay lovers can take heart...Daum offers the disapproval of youth, leavened with pithy humor and harsh self-appraisal...An edgy read.Ó


Book Description
Meghan Daum is one of the most celebrated nonfiction writers of her generation, widely recognized for the fresh, provocative approach with which she unearths hidden fault lines in the American landscape. From her well-remembered New Yorker essays about the financial demands of big-city ambition and the ethereal, strangely old-fashioned allure of cyber relationships to her dazzlingly hilarious riff in Harper's about musical passions that give way to middle-brow paraphernalia, Daum delves into the center of things while closely examining the detritus that spills out along the way. She speaks to questions at the root of the contemporary experience, from the search for authenticity and interpersonal connection in a society defined by consumerism and media; to the disenchantment of working in a "glamour profession"; to the catastrophic effects of living among New York City's terminal hipsters. With precision and well-balanced irony, Daum implicates herself as readily as she does the targets that fascinate and horrify her. In a review of The KGB Bar Reader, in which Daphne Merkin singled out Daum's essay about the inability to mourn a friend's death, Merkin wrote: "It's brutally quick, the way this happens, this falling in love with a writer's style. Daum's story hooked me by the second line. Hmm, I thought, this is a writer worth suspending my routines for."


From the Inside Flap
For several years now, I've kept copies of some of these essays in a manila folder by my desk. When friends or colleagues ask if I know of any especially interesting new writers, I pull out the folder and head for the photocopier. Meghan DaumÕs essay Variations on Grief is one of the most stunningly honest things I've ever read. And throughout this book, there are a surprising number of moments when your jaw just drops in amazement at what she's saying. Even when she's being funny, her writing has a clarity and intensity that just makes you feel awake. Ira Glass, host of This American Life A Joan Didion for the new millennium, Meghan Daum brings grace, wit, and insight to contemporary life, love, manners, and money. Her misspent youth is a reader's delight. Dan Wakefield, author of New York in the Fifties A voice that is fresh and wickedly funny, bracing in its honesty Bruce Jay Friedman Meghan Daum has the true essayist's gift: she will say what no one else is willing to say (about being a shiksa, about leaving New York, about being unable to grieve), and through her eloquent and vivid candor she embodies for the reader nothing less than what it feels like to be alive in America right now. David Shields


About the Author
Meghan DaumÕs essays and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, HarperÕs, The New York Times Book Review, HarperÕs Bazaar, GQ, Nerve, Self, and Vogue, among other publications. She has contributed to NPRÕs This American Life and is a commentator for Morning Edition. Born in 1970, Meghan holds an M.F.A. from Columbia. She recently moved from New York City to rural Nebraska.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

An essayist in the tradition of Joan Didion, Meghan Daum is one of the most celebrated nonfiction writers of her generation, widely recognized for her fresh, provocative approach with which she unearths the hidden fault lines in the American landscape. From her well-remember New Yorker essays about the financial demands of big-city ambition and the ethereal, strangely old-fashioned allure of cyber-relationships to her dazzlingly hilarious riff in Harper's about musical passions that give way to middle-brow paraphernalia, Daum delves into the center of things while closely examining the detritus that spills out along the way. With precision and well-balanced irony, Daum implicates herself as readily as she does the targets that fascinate and horrify her.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Essay lovers can take heart. There's a new voice in the fray, and it belongs to a talented young writer. In this collection of (largely previously published) on-target analyses of American culture, Daum offers the disapproval of youth, leavened with pithy humor and harsh self-appraisal . In each essay, she sustains interest with a good story and pricks the reader's conscience with observations that reverberate personally, whether about the secret desires of Christian women or the stunning ease of accumulating debt while existing unluxuriously in New York City. Publishing veterans will be amused and chagrined to see their profession skewered in "Publishing and Other Near-Death Experiences"; and for a hard take on one's responsibility for mourning, there is the book's best work, "Variation on Grief." Daum's decidedly agnostic outlook sometimes makes for easy moral outs, and time may render her phrasings cute. While her main premise that many Americans live "not actual lives but simulations of lives... via the trinkets on our shelves" leaves room for disagreement, on the whole, readers will enjoy an edgy read. (Mar. 15) Forecast: Daum's pieces have appeared in traditional magazines like the New Yorker, as well as in cutting-edge venues like Nerve, and have earned her a considerable reputation as a sharp Gen-X voice. Review attention and good word-of-mouth should earn this book brisk sales. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

This eclectic collection of essays delves into the corners of contemporary life, ferreting out the eccentric as well as the ordinary. Readers can identify with Daum's disdain for carpeting or her difficulty living within her means on New York's Upper West Side while working at a low-paying publishing job. On a less familiar note is an essay exploring the lifestyle of a group in California who call their communal way of life "polyamory," a brand of free love reminiscent of the 1960s. Not shy about implicating herself, Daum plunges into such thorny issues as an Internet romance and her inability to mourn a friend's death, along with her irritation at his superficial, enabling parents. A regular contributor to National Public Radio, Daum writes essays and articles appearing in major publications including The New Yorker, Harper's, New York Times, GQ, Self, and Vogue. Her work demonstrates honesty and an ability to look perceptively at herself and contemporary life. Daum's is a provocative and refreshing new voice. Recommended for larger public libraries. Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A Manhattan-centric, playful collection of essays from a young writer searching for authenticity in a material world. Born in 1970, Daum (whose essays have appeared in the New Yorker and Harper's) introduces herself as a Gen-Xer in desperate pursuit of the poshness associated with Manhattan's elite. These ten essays focus primarily on the author's life—the trivial world of an egotistical, self-proclaimed shiksa—ranging from subjects like Visa card debt to online romance to her aversion to wall-to-wall carpeting. Daum's candid voice is at once engaging, blithe, and pretentious as she describes her determination to attend Ivy League schools, where she happily assimilated into the highbrow culture of her wealthy classmates. Readers who abandoned suburban homes to pursue low-paying glamour professions in the Big Apple may relate to living in denial (of student loans) and in hope (of finding an affordable apartment), but Daum's endless whining about her inability to live within her means will tax anyone's patience in short order. Her choice of topics reveals her youth—many essays seem to emerge from her school experiences. She's at her best when recalling unique and highly personal events, such as her romantic expectations of the infatuated fan who contacted her via e-mail, and the seemingly heartless way in which she reacted to the death of an underachiever friend. The two journalistic pieces (one concerning the unconventional lives of American flight attendants, the other on a Northern California cult that justifies promiscuity with homespun spirituality) aim for shock value but fall flat as she rambles, incongruously, about her childhood recollections of practicingtheoboe,destroying her baby dolls, and flirting with Jewish boys. Promising, but hampered by jejune subject matter, Daum fails to hit her target.