AMERICAN BULK

What if we explored our relationship to consumption with the same depth and feeling we use to tell stories of great loves and losses?

Americans are caught up in bulk. We guiltily watch Amazon boxes pile up on the porch, wade through endless reviews to find the perfect product, and crave the comforting indulgence of a chain restaurant. In American Bulk, Emily Mester intertwines cultural critique and personal history to explore how the things we buy, eat, amass, and discard become an intimate part of our lives. With humor and sharp intellect, she reflects on the joys and anxieties of family Costco trips, how a seasonal stint at Ulta Beauty taught her the insidious art of the sale, and what it means to get Mall Sad. In a nuanced examination of diet culture and fatness, Mester recounts her teenage summer at fat camp and the unexpected liberation she finds there. Finally, she ventures to Storm Lake, Iowa, to reckon with her grandmother's abandoned hoard, excavating the dysfunction that lies at the heart of her family's obsession with stuff. American Bulk introduces readers to a striking new literary talent from the American heartland, one who dares to ask us to regard consumption not with guilt but with grace and empathy. Part family history, part cultural critique, and part cautionary tale, Emily Mester's AMERICAN BULK shares literary DNA with Patricia Lockwood's sharp but intimate portrayal of family in Priestdaddy and Jenny Odell's critiques of capitalism and the culture it begets in How to Do Nothing, and introduces a clear-eyed, empathetic, and deeply intelligent writer who acutely identifies the true cost of all the stuff we love. Emily Mester is from the Midwest, where she learned how to read by sounding out signs in the strip mall parking lot of a Chicago suburb. She is a graduate of Grinnell College and the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program, where she studied with Kerry Howley and Melissa Febos. She lives in Brooklyn. Twitter: https://twitter.com/emilymester