I'll Tell You in Person
Essays
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4.3 • 6 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Praise for Chloe Caldwell:
"I read it a couple of months ago in one can't-put-it-down-even-though-it's-the-middle-of-the-night sitting. It's as intense and interesting and clear-hearted as they come."—Cheryl Strayed
"I'll read anything Chloe Caldwell writes. She's a rare bird: fearless, dark, prolific, unpretentious, and truly honest."—Elisa Albert
"Nothing's sexier than first love and first intimacies, and Caldwell's brave autobiographical tale twists the trope into a powerful story about unexpectedly falling in love with a woman and the discoveries, sexual and otherwise, that ensue."—Time Out New York
"The essays in this collection are as exuberant as they are sad. Her storytelling is as vulnerable as it is bombastic. These essays roll in gangsta, but wear freshly picked daisies in their hair."—Rookie Magazine
Flailing in jobs, failing at love, getting addicted and un-addicted to people, food, and drugs—I'll Tell You in Person is a disarmingly frank account of attempts at adulthood and all the less than perfect ways we get there. Caldwell has an unsparing knack for looking within and reporting back what's really there, rather than what she'd like you to see.
Chloe Caldwell is the author of the novella Women, and the essay collection Legs Get Led Astray. Her work has appeared in the Sun, Salon, VICE, Hobart, Nylon, the Rumpus, Men's Health, and LENNY, among others. She teaches personal essay and memoir writing in New York City and lives in Hudson.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Caldwell (Women) brings an intelligent, confessional voice to this entertaining collection of personal essays about adolescence and young adulthood. She reports on her youthful hijinks involving fake ads on Craigslist, on drinking and shoplifting, the thrill of getting her driver's license, her roles in school plays, and hitchhiking in Europe. She writes about the "enormous anxiety" she harbored in her 20s and drifting from one job interview to the next. Earnest self-indulgence lies heavily on these pages, with references to Caldwell's "gluten-free high horse," and her own hotness. She points to "making kale chips dentist appointments" as markers of maturity and includes lists of tedious details ("in no particular order, here are some foods I've binged on"), which playfully convey her unrepentant self-awareness. Like in her last collection, Legs Get Led Astray, Caldwell writes about her life with warmth, humor, and not a trace of apology only this time around the stories are tamer.
Customer Reviews
Dissapointing
I felt connected to Chloe at first because we shared some of the same experiences. She has a great writing voice and I enjoyed the style very much. However. The book jumps around too frequently to create a bond or love for any one character. It leaps into her experiences with drugs and then her sexuality. And in between those, a wide variety of situations that seemed to end without an ending.