Eula Biss is the author of four books, including the New York Times bestseller On Immunity: An Inoculation, which was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times Book Review, and Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The Believer, and elsewhere, and has been supported by an NEA Literature Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Praise for Having and Being Had:
“A sensational book . . . Keenly aware of her privilege as a
white, well-educated woman who has benefited from a wide network of
family and friends, Biss has written a book that is, in effect, the
opposite of capitalism in its willingness to acknowledge that
everything she’s accomplished rests on the labor of others.”
—Associated Press
“Sharp and snappy. . . . Having and Being Had picks apart
the ethics behind our capitalist society, culminating in a powerful
look at the ways in which we assign value to the people, places and
things that comprise our lives.” —Time
“Incisive, impressive and often poetic . . .The marvel of this
book, and of Ms. Biss’s prose in general, is the spare and engaging
way she interrogates such complex and abstract concepts. With
references to Adam Smith and Dire Straits, Karl Marx and
Scooby-Doo, she turns what is essentially a chronicle of white
guilt and anxious privilege into a thoughtful and nuanced
meditation on the compromises inherent in having a comfortable
life.” —The Wall Street Journal
“A major achievement. Having and Being Had, rather than
leading through narrative, turns individual words and phrases,
like capitalism, consumers, great
America, husbandry, art, and work, into fields of
inquiry in order to frame a life. With astute consideration, this
expansive and intimate accumulation asks the questions that touch
all our lives.” —Claudia Rankine, author
of Citizen
“Curious, sharp, funny (truly) and full of questions we, as a
society, have forgotten how to ask about how we spend, what we buy
[and] why we work.” —NPR
“Biss has long been drawn to topics that lend themselves to
polemic, which she approaches in a spirit that’s resolutely
unpolemical. Her intellect is omnivorous, roving, and humane. . . .
That clarity of purpose is what makes Biss refreshing. . . . Her
commitment to her art is complete and unembarrassable.” —The
Cut
“Having and Being Had delights because of Biss’s frankness . .
. [Biss] richly peoples Having and Being Had with
friends, neighbors, and family, bringing into conversation
scholars, theorists, economists, and writers ranging from Emily
Dickinson to the late David Graeber. She challenges the reader’s
ideas of words once thought familiar—leisure, service,
investment—and tests the tensions between work, art, and money.”
—The Rumpus
“If you feel weird about your privilege and role in capitalism,
then much of this incisive essay collection will resonate with you.
If not, you should read it anyway—perhaps especially then. It takes
a hard look at the trappings and impacts of wealth in a way that
will make you think about your life, too.” —Good Housekeeping
“Eula Biss’s prescient new book gave me new language for things I
didn’t know I felt about money, capitalism, and my place inside of
an economy that always requires so much of me and gives back so
little. A brilliant, lacerating reexamination of our relationship
to what we own and why, and who in turn might own us in ways we
didn’t know we consented to—what could be more necessary
now?” —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an
Autobiographical Novel
“[Biss writes with] confidence, accessibility, and provocation. . .
[Her] writing is calm and precise, without flourish, so clear it
belies the difficulty of writing prose so
crystalline.” —Chicago Tribune
“[Biss explores] the candid ways we reveal our own biases around
money, class, wealth, property and work. . . . Having and Being Had
is a reminder that even discussing our contemporary chaos is an act
of awakening and a call to action.” —Los Angeles Times
“Excellent . . . Biss is unflinching when broaching [her]
often taboo subjects, and approaches them through a personal lens,
writing about her own experience with home-ownership,
gentrification, marital equality, motherhood, and being a working
artist.” —Refinery29
“A collection of essays circling elegantly around the object of her
study. . . . [that is,] the moments we realize that
consumerism has begun to rust our souls.” —The New Republic
“Delicious . . . Biss is not only unafraid of taboo, she leans
into it. She uses the form of the essay to interrogate, break
apart, and complicate something in order to make it fully known and
understood. . . . Disarming and effective.”
—The Washington Independent Review of Books
“With her signature moving and relatable prose, Eula Biss wrestles
honestly with the everyday contradictions that accompany the effort
to be a good person (and a good artist) in a capitalist
world.” —ARTnews Magazine
“Compulsively readable . . . blends research, reflection and
richly rendered personal experience. . . . This is a book that
asks to be read, absorbed and read again.” —BookPage
“[A] strong new meditation on buying and owning in a society
as a white woman where some people descend from Americans once
considered property themselves. . . . This is an essential
book for our out-of-control times.” —Lit Hub
“A stylish, meditative inquiry into the function and meaning
of twenty-first-century capitalism. . . . Biss doesn’t shy
away from acknowledging her own privilege, and laces her
reflections with unexpected insights and a sharp yet ingratiating
sense of humor. . . . this eloquent, well-informed account
recasts the everyday world in a sharp new light.” —Publishers
Weekly
“Eula Biss is known for stepping off the plank into turbulent
waters that others might fear or avoid, armed with wry wit and a
radical lucidity. Having and Being Had continues this
journey, offering us a probing tour of capitalism and class that
sidesteps posturing and jargon in favor of clarity, humility, and
incitement.” —Maggie Nelson, author of The
Argonauts
“No contemporary writer I know explores and confronts her own
societal responsibilities better than Eula Biss. In Having and
Being Had she unpacks capitalism as a lived practice of a
thinking person. She makes you surprised and delighted by the way
she extracts complex ideas from mundane
situations.” —Aleksandar Hemon, author of The
Lazarus Project
“In this witty, genre-bending book, Eula Biss smashes the taboo
against talking about money with exhilarating results. Her
investigation ranges from the strictly financial to the broadly
philosophical as she accounts for her life with disarming honesty
and grace.” —Jenny Offill, author of Weather
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