The Unspeakable

And Other Subjects of Discussion

Fiction & Literature, Essays & Letters, Essays
Cover of the book The Unspeakable by Meghan Daum, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Meghan Daum ISBN: 9780374710064
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publication: November 18, 2014
Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Language: English
Author: Meghan Daum
ISBN: 9780374710064
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication: November 18, 2014
Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Language: English

"Daum is her generation's Joan Didion." —Nylon

Nearly fifteen years after her debut collection, My Misspent Youth, captured the ambitions and anxieties of a generation, Meghan Daum returns to the personal essay with The Unspeakable, a masterful collection of ten new works. Her old encounters with overdrawn bank accounts and oversized ambitions in the big city have given way to a new set of challenges. The first essay, "Matricide," opens without flinching:

People who weren't there like to say that my mother died at home surrounded by loving family. This is technically true, though it was just my brother and me and he was looking at Facebook and I was reading a profile of Hillary Clinton in the December 2009 issue of Vogue*.*

Elsewhere, she carefully weighs the decision to have children—"I simply felt no calling to be a parent. As a role, as my role, it felt inauthentic and inorganic"—and finds a more fulfilling path as a court-appointed advocate for foster children. In other essays, she skewers the marriage-industrial complex and recounts a harrowing near-death experience following a sudden illness. Throughout, Daum pushes back against the false sentimentality and shrink-wrapped platitudes that surround so much of contemporary American experience and considers the unspeakable thoughts many of us harbor—that we might not love our parents enough, that "life's pleasures" sometimes feel more like chores, that life's ultimate lesson may be that we often learn nothing.
But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the New Age search for the "Best Possible Experience," champions the merits of cream-of mushroom-soup casserole, and gleefully recounts a quintessential "only-in-L.A." story of playing charades at a famous person's home.
Combining the piercing insight of Joan Didion with humor reminiscent of Nora Ephron's, Daum dissects our culture's most dangerous illusions, blind spots, and sentimentalities while retaining her own joy and compassion. Through it all, she dramatizes the search for an authentic self in a world where achieving an identity is never simple and never complete.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

"Daum is her generation's Joan Didion." —Nylon

Nearly fifteen years after her debut collection, My Misspent Youth, captured the ambitions and anxieties of a generation, Meghan Daum returns to the personal essay with The Unspeakable, a masterful collection of ten new works. Her old encounters with overdrawn bank accounts and oversized ambitions in the big city have given way to a new set of challenges. The first essay, "Matricide," opens without flinching:

People who weren't there like to say that my mother died at home surrounded by loving family. This is technically true, though it was just my brother and me and he was looking at Facebook and I was reading a profile of Hillary Clinton in the December 2009 issue of Vogue*.*

Elsewhere, she carefully weighs the decision to have children—"I simply felt no calling to be a parent. As a role, as my role, it felt inauthentic and inorganic"—and finds a more fulfilling path as a court-appointed advocate for foster children. In other essays, she skewers the marriage-industrial complex and recounts a harrowing near-death experience following a sudden illness. Throughout, Daum pushes back against the false sentimentality and shrink-wrapped platitudes that surround so much of contemporary American experience and considers the unspeakable thoughts many of us harbor—that we might not love our parents enough, that "life's pleasures" sometimes feel more like chores, that life's ultimate lesson may be that we often learn nothing.
But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the New Age search for the "Best Possible Experience," champions the merits of cream-of mushroom-soup casserole, and gleefully recounts a quintessential "only-in-L.A." story of playing charades at a famous person's home.
Combining the piercing insight of Joan Didion with humor reminiscent of Nora Ephron's, Daum dissects our culture's most dangerous illusions, blind spots, and sentimentalities while retaining her own joy and compassion. Through it all, she dramatizes the search for an authentic self in a world where achieving an identity is never simple and never complete.

More books from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Cover of the book The Echo Maker by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book Happiness Is a Choice You Make by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book The Bees by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book Disgruntled by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book The Monroe Doctrine by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book Gain by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book Wolf in White Van by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book It Hit Me Like a Ton of Bricks by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book Chickamauga by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book The Whisper by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book Eat Only When You're Hungry by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book A Life Worth Living by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book How to Find an Elephant by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book A Stranger to Myself by Meghan Daum
Cover of the book The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick by Meghan Daum
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy