Overview

A riveting investigation of the utopian experiments attempting to resist the unrelenting demands of late-stage capitalism-only to end up living comfortably alongside it What do post-work politics, the cult of crypto, clubbing, and polyamory have in common? All have spawned thriving subcultures united in their rejection of the patriarchal capitalist order: from wage labour, to the reign of the shareholder class over capital markets, to romantic relationships that feel like contractual arrangements to be negotiated, and more. People Who Lunch is about hating work and needing to work, intimacy and technology, labour and leisure, and the challenge of living our ideals in a less than ideal world. In it, Sally Olds brings her ""unsparing scrutiny to bear...as she grapples with the sense of entrapment in the machinery of capitalism and remorseless logic of commodification"" (ABC Arts). In one essay, Olds's brief flirtation with post-monogamy forces her to confront the emotional prison of the ""open relationship""; in another, a multi-hour viewing of a critically acclaimed performance art piece highlights how even the highest forms of culture exist to convert pleasure into capital. In the end, her forays into these colourful worlds betray a deep irony: escaping a system built on the exchange of wage labour is, quite simply, a lot of work.

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9780316565714

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Reviews

"""A remarkable debut... written in a register many great authors write in: one that does not worry about the industry, about the audience, about the bullshit; one that cares only about the book itself. The result is miraculous.""--ABC News (Australia) ""An utterly riveting and original collection of essays--hard-thinking, formally innovative, dazzling intellectually, and sentence by sentence out-of-this-world good.""--Maria Tumarkin ""Every piece in the collection...asks you to think harder about the ways we earn money, party, and look out for each other... Driven by sharp intellect and a radiant, unaffected interest in the world around her."" --Imogen Dewey, The Guardian (Australia) ""I can't stop thinking about People Who Lunch. The book interrupts my sleep, and I desperately want to discuss it with everybody.""--Sydney Review of Books ""It's rare to find new writing this bold and exciting.""--Books+Publishing ""Anyone who saw me reading People Who Lunch in the park would have found me at turns furrowing my brow, nodding ruefully, and cackling aloud. Olds' writing is that rare combination of unsparing and enjoyable, a much needed departure from the formulaic.""--Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing and Saving Time"

Author Information

Sally Olds is an Australian writer based in Melbourne. Her work has been published by Sydney Review of Books, un Magazine, AQNB, and the Institute of Modern Art, collected in anthologies, and shortlisted for the Griffith Review's Emerging Voices Competition and the Sydney Review of Books / Copyright Agency's Emerging Critics Fellowship. People Who Lunch was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award. More of her writing can be found at theparisend.substack.com.

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