338 pages
English language
Published Nov. 8, 2013
White Girls, Hilton Als’s first book since The Women 16 years ago, finds one of The New Yorker's boldest cultural critics deftly weaving together his brilliant analyses of literature, art, and music with fearless insights on race, gender, and history. The result is an extraordinary, complex portrait of "white girls,” as Als dubs them, an expansive but precise category that encompasses figures as diverse as Truman Capote and Louise Brooks, Michael Jackson and Flannery O’Connor. In pieces that hairpin between critique and meditation, fiction and nonfiction, high culture and low, the theoretical and the deeply personal, Als presents a stunning portrait of a writer by way of his subjects, and an invaluable guide to the culture of our time.
This would be in the 3.5 area. It was challenging, confounding, at times tiresome, but ultimately an extremely important exploration of perspective.
Fairly stunning collection of some short and not-so-short pieces that, for the most part, defy genre. New (to me) takes on intersectionality, the notion of "theory" falling away as Als explores real lives--his own among them--in a way that is direct, but never cavalier. His narrators' expressions of everything from disgust to joy in discussing their subjects' histories outline a deep reverence for humanity.
