Look Alive Out There: Essays

The author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number, Crosley is an accomplished humorist who has earned her reputation with spot-on, incisive social critiques. In this way, the author's newest collection does not disappoint. In fact, this is Crosley at her best. These essays are funny but also complex and with depth. The author uses humor to not only entertain but also examine wealth and social inequality, sex and gender roles, fertility and death—topics that otherwise would not lend themselves easily to comedy. This collection is impressive in its subtlety. One essay that seemingly begins to describe a trip to Ecuador and an ill-formed plan to climb one of the world's tallest volcanoes gradually develops into a deeper meditation on human loneliness. In another, a retired porn star offers Crosley some wise love advice. And in another, a psychic coincidence somehow leads her into the lobby of a fertility clinic, confronting an egg-freezing dilemma. These essays, in other words, take readers to unexpected places. They surprise.