The Witches Are Coming

ISBN 10: 1549180533 ISBN 13: 9781549180538

Publisher: Hachette Books, 2019

Synopsis

**Named one of Esquire's most anticipated books of 2019**

From the very moment powerful men on top started falling to the #MeToo movement, the lamentations have been raging from every corner: this is feminism gone too far, this is injustice, this is a witch hunt. In The Witches Are Coming, firebrand author of the New York Times bestselling memoir and now critically acclaimed Hulu TV series Shrill, Lindy West, turns that refrain on its head: FINE, IF YOU INSIST. THIS IS A WITCH HUNT. WE'RE WITCHES, AND WE'RE HUNTING YOU.
In a laugh-out-loud, incisive cultural critique, West suggest that Americans reckon with the dark truths that we've long left unexamined. She writes, "We were just a hair's breadth from electing America's first female president to succeed America's first black president. We weren't done, but we were doing it. And then, true to form--like the Balrog's whip catching Gandalf by his little gray bootie, like the husband in a Lifetime movie hissing, 'If I can't have you, no one can'--white American voters and the electoral college and a few Russian troll farms shoved an incompetent, racist con-man into the White House."
West unpacks the complicated, and sometimes tragic, journey and politics of not being a white man in the 21st century. She tracks the misogyny and propaganda hidden (or not so hidden) in the media she and her peers devoured growing up, a buffet of distortions, delusions, prejudice and outright bullsh*t that has allowed white male mediocrity to maintain a death grip on American culture and politics.
At once side-splittingly funny and irresistibly thought-provoking, The Witches Are Coming provides all the kindling to burn America's restrictive and outdated social norms to the ground. Lindy West lights the match.

About this title

About the Author

Lindy West is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. She is the author of Shrill, a memoir, which is being adapted into a Hulu series starring Aidy Bryant. Her essays on feminism, social justice, body image and popular culture have been featured in Jezebel, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and on This American Life. From 2014 to 2017 she wrote a weekly political column for The Guardian. She is also the founder of I Believe You/It's Not Your Fault, an advice blog for teenagers, as well as the reproductive rights destigmatization campaign #ShoutYourAbortion. She lives in Seattle.

Review

"This collection of essays takes a hammer to the societal, cultural and political scaffolding propping up the patriarchy and then makes you laugh as it comes crashing down."

-- "BookPage"

"With her signature wit, brio, and laser-like clarity of vision, one of our foremost thinkers on gender unveils her unifying theory of America: that our steady diet of pop culture created by and for embittered, entitled white men has stoked our sociopolitical moment. Adam Sandler, South Park, and Pepe the Frog all come under West's withering scrutiny in this funny, hyper-literate analysis of the link between meme culture and male mediocrity."

-- "Esquire"

"A thoughtful and funny examination of rape culture in media."

-- "Bustle"

About this edition

• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1549180533
• ISBN 13: 9781549180538
• Binding: Audio CD