December 20, 2021
“Women’s stories of their struggles with money are shrouded in secrecy and shame,” writes activist Walker (Black, White, and Jewish) in this inspiring anthology in which 29 women open up about their finances, as well as how doing so has freed them from the “heterosexist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” In “Money Wounds,” Latham Thomas recalls seeing her Black mother, a realtor, thrown to the ground by the police in Oakland when she tried to deposit a commission check, while, in “The Price of Air,” Nina Revoyr writes of the expense of living somewhere with decent air quality. In “Composting Capitalism,” adrienne maree brown recounts getting her credit cards frozen after years of being a “tax resister” to protest defense spending. Gabby Bellot considers the cost of being trans in “Sharks in the Banya” (“transitioning... is a financial privilege,” she writes); and in “Come Fund Me,” Porochista Khakpour outlines her experience crowdfunding: “donations had the feeling of hugs from afar.” As Walker writes, “our money stories resist their own telling, as if the revelations might bring down an empire,” and the essays, taken together, make a powerful case for the importance of disclosure. It’s a sobering and eye-opening look at what really happens behind the purse strings.
January 1, 2022
A collection of essays exploring women's relationships with money. In her latest book, prominent third-wave feminist Walker brings together a wide variety of contributors--both women and gender-nonconforming writers--to address the subject. "We had thought that telling the truth about money might divide us by revealing how different we were; we had not considered that the same honesty might unite us against whatever forces still kept us apart," she writes. Throughout, the contributors show how money is inextricably intertwined with race, gender, body image, well-being, and more. From children of immigrants who witness their parents calculating how best to ensure their children's (and thereby their own) futures to sex work, unpaid caregiving, and widowhood, the presence or absence of money is an invisible hand driving the fates of each essayist. Heart-wrenching pieces about the cost of addiction and the price of success for Black women coexist with fascinating, if less sympathetic, reflections on rejecting family wealth and the less-photogenic aspects of being an Instagram influencer. The collection contains universal truths as well as uniquely American ones, such as the contentious notion of having to pay for health care and the bureaucracy of college financial aid. While some pieces feel repurposed, with the topic at hand shoehorned in as an afterthought, for the most part, the essays are thoughtful and expansive, giving readers a glimpse of how people from across the socio-economic spectrum have had to define--and oftentimes reinvent--themselves through the prism of money. "I take as a given that we exist in a context of white supremacist settler colonialism and voracious capitalism," writes poet and translator Jen Hofer. In this collection, talking about money becomes a revolutionary act against these systems. Other contributors include Daisy Hernandez, Porochista Khakpour, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and Jamie Wong; Alice Walker provides the foreword. A worthy read, but its true worth will be reflected in the conversations it will start.
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February 1, 2022
Novelist Walker (Ad� A Love Story) edits an essay collection about women and their relationships with money, particularly in relation to the COVID pandemic. Walker has selected previously unpublished essays by activists, models, poets, and novelists, including Rachel Cargle, Nancy McCabe, Tracy McMillan, Cameron Russell, Sonya Renee Taylor, and Alice Walker (who is the editor's mother). The anthology's essays insightfully discuss women's experiences with (and without) money: among them are personal tales of student loan and credit card debt, medical care with destabilizing costs, and money lessons learned from one's mother. The book gives biographical information for each contributor. VERDICT An eye-opening book with great insights drawn from individual experiences of money, with stories of success and less-than-success. These essays can start conversations going among women who wish to deal openly and honestly with money and finances. Highly recommended.--Lucy Heckman
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 1, 2022
Editor/writer Walker (Baby Love; Ad�) gathers the writing of nearly 30 women on a subject that dominates most lives, female or otherwise--money or not having enough of it. Each voice is different, yet similarities appear: struggles with long-term illnesses, the need to give offspring a better life, payment for past decisions that intrude into the present--lessons that, somehow, are either never learned or assimilated painfully into the present. One contributor subsists on credit cards. Another runs away from a family fortune that is never quite hers. A third, shaken by the failure of her business start-up, embraces meditation and all things spiritual. What is so powerful throughout each narrative is what one writer calls ""radical honesty,"" their openness to confront their relationships with money. As Walker points out, the Great Recession destroyed many dreams; on the other hand, those dreams were fueled by some wrong thinking about dollars and sense. Seen in the light of the trillions ""spent"" every year in undervalued domestic labor alone, this should be required reading for any woman.
COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.