Review: I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

by Kevin Eagan

Growing up in middle class suburbia has become the height of American comfort, but it's also true that it breeds a certain level of eccentricity - at least, for those who came of age in all of its pre-packaged glory. Blame it on the lack of originality; the strip malls, the four-lane divided highways, and the big box retailers all start to look the same after a while, and those seeking a thrill end up in the city trying to make it in a completely different world.

While David Sedaris' bestselling essays have shown that coming of age in suburbia can be an absurd experience, he's not the only writer who portrays the urban-suburban divide in a hilarious way. As America has moved out of the urban centers and created a new level of urban sprawl, it could be said that the suburban life is about as American as you can get.

Count Sloane Crosley as one more essayist who has endured a childhood in the suburbs, and has a hilarious (albeit slightly eccentric) way of looking at her upbringing. For Crosley, childhood was about working at the mall, surviving the rigors of an all-girls summer camp, and getting a high score on the computer game Oregon Trail.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake is Crosley's first collection of essays, and nothing is held back. Throughout the 15 essays, Crosley takes us on a trip through some of her most hilarious and heartfelt experiences, both as a successful urban woman in New York City and as a self-conscious girl growing up in Westchester, NY ("I came to understand that being born and raised in suburbia makes it difficult to lay claim to a specific type of childhood," Crosley writes).

Crosley's clever way of looking at life and her unique use of language makes I Was Told There'd Be Cake a fun read, and each essay will have you laughing at the odd and bizarre situations Crosley gets herself into. In the first essay, "The Pony Problem," Crosley's attempts at finding uniqueness (by making jokes about ponies) gets interpreted by everyone around her that she really likes ponies, and before you know it, she has a drawerful of plastic ponies that she just can't bring herself to throw away, even though she thinks they are "insanely creepy."

"The Pony Problem" is just one example of how Crosley's dark humor creates an engaging and unique look at life. In "Bring-Your-Machete-To-Work Day," Crosley's inner child and "awkward" transition into teenager left her abusing her favorite computer game Oregon Trail by naming all of her characters after people she knew, and then watching them suffer: "Eventually a message would pop up in the middle of the screen, framed in a neat box: MRS. ROSS HAS DIED OF DYSENTERY. This filled me with glee."

In "You On A Stick," Crosley also re-visits her childhood through her "best" friend's wedding, and her sardonic inner monologue reveals the friendship as a complete fraud, but one that works well for the wedding cameras. Of course, Crosley lets us know the truth, that being maid of honor is a chore that's not worth the brouhaha: "'Horror is a six-letter word. So is 'fuck me.'"

Throughout the collection, language is used to great effect, and Crosley's clever word play portrays otherwise mundane events in an original way. In "Lay Like Broccoli," Crosley defends her vegetarian diet by "[keeping] a set of (vegetable) stock answers at my disposal for all queries about my diet," and in "Smell This," Crosley discovers an unpleasant object on her bathroom floor after a party, and tries to deduce who left the surprise: "Jesus, she's got shit on her floor."

I Was Told There'd Be Cake is an excellent start for a writer who has spent most of her career surrounded by books (she also works as a publicist for Vintage/Anchor books), and it certainly suggests that Crosley has more to come. The collection is both a wonderful read and an excellent critique of the suburban upbringing. Crosley's Web site also provides an interesting extension to the book, and adds a level of multimedia output that sets her writing ahead of many of her predecessors. Overall, I Was Told There'd Be Cake won't take long to read and will have you laughing the whole time.

Originally posted on Blogcritics.org

Mix Bag #2: Fictitious Non-Fiction, Cake, and a Bloody Massacre

Mix Bag is a weekly feature that brings together a random collection of media and highlights why it all matters to you.

After an extended weekend off and a handful of other things to write, I haven't had too much time to peruse what's interesting out there this week. Usually, I'd say it's disappointing to put off a feature for a few days, but then I remind myself that with only a handful of readers to brag about, There There Kid is still too little of a start up for anyone to complain about Mix Bag coming out late. But I digress...

Anyway, we might as well jump right in and examine the world of cultural activity that I've found interesting lately. First, The New York Times' literary blog Paper Cuts has an interesting article up about yet another fabrication coming to light in a major non-fiction book. This time, it's not one of the infamous memoir fabrications marketed for mass appeal. Instead, it's a work of journalism that takes some liberties at truth or, as Stephen Colbert would put it, truthiness (that word makes a lot more sense now than it did when it came out). It's a book called Bringing Down the House, and it's the book that the latest blockbuster 21 was based on. But as it turns out, many sections were exaggerated to the point of being completely false; at one point in the book, for example, the team of gamblers supposedly strapped thousands of dollars to their bodies before boarding planes, which apparently never happened. There are other dramatic scenes that the real-life characters of the book deny ever happening, and this is all coming out right when 21 is out in cinemas across the country. Ouch.

There's also a collection of essays that just came out called I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley. They sound quite interesting, blending comedy with the mundane parts of daily life. Sloane works as a publicist for Vintage/Anchor books during the day, so her understanding of the absurdities surrounding literary publicity and the 9 to 5 office job could make an interesting read. I've ordered a copy and hope to read it soon. Sloane's Web site is also a lot of fun, adding art and excerpts/blurbs for her book.

There's also a book coming out in May that takes our current generation to task, called The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future by Mark Bauerlein. Despite the pretentious sounding title, the book actually looks like it smartly dissects exactly why, with more and more information at our fingertips, we keep getting dumber. Is there really a reason, or is this guy just a cranky old man? I hope to find out, and I'll probably have a review up later on.

In the world of music, things keep getting more and more interesting as the year continues. People seem in awe of R.E.M.'s latest (I'm still on the fence, personally), but most reviews seem to recognize that it's just about the best you can get from a band that's become increasingly less relevant over the years.

In jazz, I like Pete Robbins' Do the Hate Laugh Shimmy, and the album title gives the vibe of the album away. It's quirky and experimental, yet rooted in something whole and tangible. It's an excellent album that comes out later in the month.

And there are a lot more albums coming out this week. I've been on a Sonic Youth kick lately, so it's nice to see that Thurston Moore is releasing another solo album called Sensitive/Lethal. The Microphones and Man Man have new albums out as well.

Next week, the eclectic weirdos that make up Brian Jonestown Massacre are releasing their 13th album called My Bloody Underground. It's very experimental, and gives off a different vibe from some of their past work; to be honest, it sounds more like a collection of demos than a full-length LP. But there are some gems, and the experimentation is more in line with TV On the Radio than some of the blues influences of past albums. It took a few listens for me to get into it, and I'm still not fully convinced. But that doesn't matter, it's still a lot of fun.

That's about it for now, I'd love to see what everyone else finds interesting out there in the internet world.