Nonfiction: The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West

In her insightful and hilarious book The Witches are Coming, comedian and activist Lindy West provides a scathing critique of modern American culture. 
“We need new work that actively challenges old assumptions, that offers radical models for how to conceive of ourselves and how to treat each other.”
​The author does this by eviscerating the myths we tell ourselves. 

• ​​On “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”:

“...the bootstrap ethos, [is] the notion that the comfortable deserve their place, that capitalism is an opportunity for the exploited to prove themselves, that success is a proportional reflection of hard work, that the rich are rich because they are good and smart.” The author calls this a “deliberate spackling over of structural inequality . . .”

• Politics get its due: 

“Right-wing propaganda has convinced even relatively intelligent people that we must ‘hear both sides’ on moral no-brainers such as NAZIS=BAD. Left-wing gullibility, always seeking to do the right thing, falls for it every time.”

• Society:

“...the purpose of a society is not to generate the maximum amount of megabucks for oil and gas executives and pharmaceutical executives and auto executives and defense contractors and corrupt old men moldering in the halls of Congress. The purpose of society is to take care of people.”

• Why structural inequality is everyone’s problem: 

“Men think that misogyny is a women’s issue; women’s to endure and women’s to fix. White people think that racism is a pet issue for people of color…Rape is a rape victim’s problem….That’s like if your doctor botched your bunion surgery and amputated both your feet and you went back to complain and the doctor said, “Don’t look at me! I have both my feet!”

• On abortion access:

“We know that about a third of women have abortions and a majority of American support abortion rights in the abstract.”  And:  “Lack of abortion is a public health crisis. Elimination of abortion access for poor folks is an instrument of class and racial warfare.”

• Why what we does matters:

“Whatever your sphere is, however big or small, you get to make choices within it,” she notes, urging us to “Think radical thoughts and let yourself imagine they’re true. Then ask yourself why it’s considered radical to make art that accurately reflects reality, to build a society that takes care of its members, to demand a better world.”

Published in 2019, this book won’t be for everyone. The author is strongly opinionated and uses colorful language, but it is a compelling addition to feminist analysis of American culture.