![]() But Crosley and Sittenfeld, homing in on women in their thirties and forties, give special primacy to embarrassment, both as a narrative constant and as a means of characterization. That might not seem particularly unique: plenty of writers- Meg Wolitzer, Adelle Waldman, Sally Rooney, to name just a few-set their ticklish comedies of manners in educated, left-leaning milieus. Sittenfeld and Crosley are amanuenses of liberal, white, female awkwardness. (The ur-text of this bait-and-switch may be the Amy Schumer sketch “ Girl, You Don’t Need Makeup.”) This specific, Zeitgeisty sort of mortification is explored in two new collections, “ Look Alive Out There,” by the essayist Sloane Crosley, and “ You Think It, I’ll Say It,” by Curtis Sittenfeld, the author of the novels “ Prep” and “ American Wife,” among others. ![]() ![]() In a culture fixated on authenticity, it is easy to be persuaded to flout social pieties in the service of expressing your “true self.” But then you realize-whoops!-that nobody wants your true self. Photograph by Monica Schipper / WireImage / Getty Sloane Crosley’s latest work, “Look Alive Out There,” startles is in its elaboration of a fully realized theory of awkwardness. ![]()
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