Awards

• Commended for National Book Awards (Nonfiction) 2019

Overview

As featured by The Daily Show, NPR, PBS, CBC, Time, VIBE, Entertainment Weekly and Well-Read Black Girl Included in Foreword Reviews Best Books of 2019, Entrepreneur magazine's Best Books of 2019 for Entrepreneurs and The Stack Podcast's 10 Favorite Reads of 2019. A New York Times Editor's Choice selection Shortlisted for the Museum of African American History Stone Book Award In eight highly praised treatises on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom — award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed — is unapologetically thick: deemed 'thick where I should have been thin, more where I should have been less'.  McMillan Cottom refuses to shy away from blending the personal with the political, from bringing her full self and voice to the fore of her analytical work.  She embraces her venerated role as a purveyor of wit, wisdom, and Black Twitter snark about all that is right and much that is wrong with this thing we call society. This bold compendium, likely to find its place on shelves alongside Lindy West, Rebecca Solnit, and Maggie Nelson, dissects everything from beauty to Obama to pumpkin spice lattes. Yet Thick will also fill a void on those very shelves: a modern black American female voice waxing poetic on self and society, serving up a healthy portion of clever prose and southern aphorisms in a style uniquely her own. Thick cements McMillan Cottom's position as a public thinker capable of shedding new light on what the 'personal essay' can do. She turns her chosen form into a showcase for her critical dexterity, investigating everything from Saturday Night Live, LinkedIn, and BBQ Becky to sexual violence, infant mortality, and Trump rallies. 'Thick is sure to become a classic of black intellectualism.' — The New York Times Book Review 'Cottom's intersectionality is merely the work of a writer seeing the world clearly and deeply, and connecting the dots in fresh and revealing ways.' — Chicago Tribune 'Incisive, witty, and provocative essays...the collection showcases McMillian Cottoms wisdom and originality and amply fulfils her aim of telling powerful stories that become a problem for power' — Publishes Weekly, starred review 'The meshing of the personal and political and the author's take-no-prisioners attitude makes these essays sizzle.' — Kirkus Reviews 'To say this collection is transgressive, provocative, and brilliant is simply to tell you the truth. Thick is a necessary work and a reminder that Tressie McMillan Cottom is one of the finest public intellectuals writing today.' — Roxane Gay, author of Hunger and Bad Feminist

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9781620974360

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Reviews

Praise for Thick The meshing of the personal and political and the author's take-no-prisoners attitude make these essays sizzle. A provocative volume bound to stir argument and discussion. --Kirkus Reviews This book is essential for anyone who wants to think deeply about race, feminism, and culture. --BookRiot To say this collection is transgressive, provocative, and brilliant is simply to tell you the truth. Thick is a necessary work and a reminder that Tressie McMillan Cottom is one of the finest public intellectuals writing today. --Roxane Gay, author of Hunger and Bad Feminist Thick is gorgeous, incisive, and hard. Tressie McMillan Cottom is among America's most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time and she is at her very best here. These essays enlighten and complicate and push conversations further. They are blisteringly smart and beautifully written. They are also, simply, a pleasure to read. --Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad and All the Single Ladies Black women are uniquely attuned to the hydra that bell hooks names the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Publics should trust black women. Thick proves why readers should trust Tressie McMillan Cottom's black-people-loving writing that is as deft as it is amusing. Her words are a sword. She comes out swinging her blade at the hydra's head with unmatched courage. --Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire These essays show us the potency of actually existing black feminist analysis and expose the deep structures of racism and inequality that shape most black women's lives. With biting humor and razor-sharp political clarity, Thick is a crucial contribution to contemporary black thought. --Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation Reading Thick is like holding a mirror to your soul and to that of America. [S]earingly intimate and astute . . . at once painfully honest and gloriously affirming. --Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body Rich with layers of meaning . . . blaaaaaack and southern and country and wise [and] pulsates with wit, self-awareness, and unabashed expertise. For Professional Smart People with sense, her writing is #goals. --Soraya McDonald, culture critic at The Undefeated Thick is aptly named, for McMillan Cottom is no intellectual lightweight--she walks heavy, bringing together her singular sociological insights with compelling and relatable storytelling. --Brittney Cooper, author of Eloquent Rage Praise for Tressie McMillan Cottom's Lower Ed The best book yet on the complex lives and choices of for-profit students. --The New York Times Book Review

Praise for Thick To say this collection is transgressive, provocative, and brilliant is simply to tell you the truth. Thick is a necessary work and a reminder that Tressie McMillan Cottom is one of the finest public intellectuals writing today. --Roxane Gay, author of Hunger and Bad Feminist Thick is gorgeous, incisive, and hard. Tressie McMillan Cottom is among America's most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time and she is at her very best here. These essays enlighten and complicate and push conversations further. They are blisteringly smart and beautifully written. They are also, simply, a pleasure to read. --Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad and All the Single Ladies Black women are uniquely attuned to the hydra that bell hooks names the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Publics should trust black women. Thick proves why readers should trust Tressie McMillan Cottom's black-people-loving writing that is as deft as it is amusing. Her words are a sword. She comes out swinging her blade at the hydra's head with unmatched courage. --Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire These essays show us the potency of actually existing black feminist analysis and expose the deep structures of racism and inequality that shape most black women's lives. With biting humor and razor-sharp political clarity, Thick is a crucial contribution to contemporary black thought. --Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation Reading Thick is like holding a mirror to your soul and to that of America. [S]earingly intimate and astute . . . at once painfully honest and gloriously affirming. --Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body Rich with layers of meaning . . . blaaaaaack and southern and country and wise [and] pulsates with wit, self-awareness, and unabashed expertise. For Professional Smart People with sense, her writing is #goals. --Soraya McDonald, culture critic at The Undefeated Praise for Tressie McMillan Cottom's Lower Ed The best book yet on the complex lives and choices of for-profit students. --The New York Times Book Review

Praise for Tressie McMillan Cottom's Lower Ed The best book yet on the complex lives and choices of for-profit students. --The New York Times Book Review Cottom does a good job of making the name Lower Ed stick, and she makes a solid case for reviewing the entire system of higher education for openness of opportunity. --Kirkus Reviews In Lower Ed McMillan Cottom is at her very best--rigorous, incisive, empathetic, and witty. . . . Her sharp intelligence, throughout, makes this book compelling, unforgettable, and deeply necessary. --Roxane Gay, author of Difficult Women and Bad Feminist Lower Ed is brilliant. It is nuanced, carefully argued, and engagingly written. It is a powerful, chilling tale of what happens when profit-driven privatization of a public good latches on to systemic inequality and individual aspirations. --Carol Anderson, author of White Rage and professor of African American studies at Emory University This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the market forces currently transforming higher education. It is an eye-opening portrait of this burgeoning educational sector and the ways in which its rapid expansion is linked to skyrocketing inequality and growing labor precarity in the twenty-first-century United States. --Ruth Milkman, past president of the American Sociological Association In a sea of simplistic and often bombastic critiques of American higher education, Tressie McMillan Cottom's trenchant analysis of Lower Ed stands out. As the Trump administration moves to make life ever easier for the nation's for-profit colleges, this book offers the most powerful form of resistance--detailed storytelling of the causes and consequences of this big-money industry. Anyone frustrated with high college prices, student debt, or the diminishing sense of hope surrounding so many communities needs to read this book. --Sara Goldrick-Rab, author of Paying the Price and professor of higher education policy at Temple University With passion, eloquence, and data too, McMillan Cottom charts the harm we are doing to our youth, to higher education, and to democracy itself. --Cathy N. Davidson, author of Now You See It and founding director of the Futures Initiative at the City University of New York [A] profound examination of the role of for-profit colleges in the emerging, 'new' American economic landscape. This is the best book I've read on for-profit (or shareholder) colleges and universities. --William A. Darity Jr., professor of economics, public policy, and African American studies at Duke University

Praise for Thick To say this collection is transgressive, provocative, and brilliant is simply to tell you the truth. Thick is a necessary work and a reminder that Tressie McMillan Cottom is one of the finest public intellectuals writing today. --Roxane Gay, author of Hunger and Bad Feminist Thick is gorgeous, incisive, and hard. Tressie McMillan Cottom is among America's most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time and she is at her very best here. These essays enlighten and complicate and push conversations further. They are blisteringly smart and beautifully written. They are also, simply, a pleasure to read. --Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad and All the Single Ladies Black women are uniquely attuned to the hydra that bell hooks names the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Publics should trust black women. Thick proves why readers should trust Tressie McMillan Cottom's black-people-loving writing that is as deft as it is amusing. Her words are a sword. She comes out swinging her blade at the hydra's head with unmatched courage. --Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire These essays show us the potency of actually existing black feminist analysis and expose the deep structures of racism and inequality that shape most black women's lives. With biting humor and razor-sharp political clarity, Thick is a crucial contribution to contemporary black thought. --Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

Author Information

Tressie McMillan Cottom is an associate professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of Lower Ed. Her work has been featured by The Daily Show, the New York Times, the Washington Post, PBS, NPR, Fresh Air, and The Atlantic, among others. In 2020, McMillan Cottom was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.

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