Kirsti's Reviews > Having and Being Had

Intelligent, angry, ruminative essays about money, capitalism, power, art, freedom, feminism, and what it means to be a gentrifier. (She does not call herself a gentrifier, but it's pretty clear that's what she is.) Biss cannot hide her resentment and jealousy of those who have more money than she does, even though she and her husband have white-collar jobs and a suburban home in a college town. If a nonprofit funded by rich people paid me forty-five thousand dollars so I could take time off from my day job and write a book, would I still try to bite the hand that feeds? Maybe.

My heart did go out to her when she wrote about forced hugging in the workplace. I had a similar situation happen to me several years ago, and while I did not handle it the same way she did, I can understand why it filled her with rage to even have to deal with it.

Anyway, if you haven't read her earlier book, On Immunity, I recommend that one instead.