Second Edition out now from Feminist Press
Best Book, Chicago Public Library (2017)
Lambda Literary Awards Finalist, LGBTQ Nonfiction (2018)
Chicago Review of Books Nonfiction Award Shortlist (2017)
“One of the best Political Economy books of all time” —BookAuthority
“Sharp, shocking, and darkly funny, the essays in this sapient collection … expose the twisted logic at the core of Western capitalism and our stunted understanding of both its violence and the illnesses it breeds. … Brainy and historically informed, this collection is less a rallying cry or a bitter diatribe than a series of irreverent and ruthlessly accurate jabs at a culture that is slowly devouring us.” —Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“An exploration of misogyny unlike any I’ve ever encountered, this reissued and updated volume brings us again into the excellence of Anne Elizabeth Moore’s research and ability as a historian. She writes with wit, wry humor, and the instincts of a detective-novelist-cum-muckraking-journalist. In Body Horror, Moore brings us stories that will never leave us alone again.” —Riva Lehrer, artist and author of Golem Girl: A Memoir
“With lacerating wit and furious precision, Anne Elizabeth Moore connects the dots between labor, medicine, misogyny, and cultural production to reveal the scars and sores wrought by Western capitalism. In the six years since Body Horror was originally published, Moore’s already-prescient writing now reflects the urgency, both personal and political, of upending the tidy narratives of a body politic that hurt more than they help. It’s a necessary evisceration of institutions and imperatives that asks us to do something almost unthinkable: imagine better for ourselves and our communities.”—Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once
“I laughed, I cried, I puked, I cheered. This visceral collection is one of the best things I’ve ever read—an essential, humane book.” —Daniel Kraus, coauthor of The Living Dead
“Body Horror is a strangely comforting book to read for its decidedly feminist, anti-capitalist, and anti-consumerist content. It is indeed a tiny bit horrific but written with a good dose of humor, and shows that, no, you are not alone in this cruel world.” —Julie Doucet, cartoonist and author of Time Zone J
“Scary as fuck and liberating … Moore connects the dots that you did not even think were on the same page.” —Viva la Feminista
“[D]evastating in its unwillingness to flinch … Body Horror is an incredible, touching, intelligent collection that looks beyond what’s comfortable to examine what is true.” —Foreword (five-star review)
“The metaphor that centers the collection … is captured in a comically macabre way by the book’s cover art, which combines freak-show graphics with a punk-zine sensibility. And it is that extra edge, that bizarro brio, that makes this collection resonate long after the political harangue has faded. … By audaciously linking her disparate Body Horrors to a larger construct — more complex even than her own immune system, more menacing than mere patriarchy — Moore allows her essays, each plenty feisty its own right, to punch significantly above their individual weight. Whether one is ready in real life to attribute everything from Crohn’s disease to Pacific Time to the machinations of the market, Moore’s arguments land with force enough to make even the marginally politicized reader think.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“Moore herself is hyper-aware, and her unflinching worldview had the effect on me of a knife cutting through the wool pulled over my eyes. … Each essay, though varying wildly, held me rapt with its at-times heartbreaking, at times serious, at (most) times hilarious excoriation of capitalism and the myriad ways in which it enacts ‘heinous acts’ upon the marginalized members of our society.” —Autostraddle
“Her writing is clear and crisp and she has a sense of humor that’s so deeply embedded in her prose that often you don’t laugh at the punchline until it has come and gone. She excels at the long form of joke telling where the laughs don’t readily come but stick with you long after.” —Third Coast Review
“[A] fragmented but practical feminist economic theory of the body … Whether you find solace and solidarity in Foucault or Fanon, Nina Simone or Suicidal Tendencies, in Moore’s writing you will encounter a careful attention to what makes life livable if unbearable, dizzying with complexity, and always closer to our bodies than we care to remember.” —The Carolina Quarterly
“Difficult to put down.” —Portland Mercury
“[U]ses well-woven analytics, seamless humor, and eye-opening research to put on display the wonky edges and deep cracks of the contemporary capitalist system and its harsh toll on women.” —The Publishing Lab Review
“Anne Elizabeth Moore’s writing is akin to an Olympic gymnast’s floor routine. It’s strong, precise, sometimes daring and awfully brave about tumbling from one place to another.” —Detroit Free Press
“Probing her own experiences with disease and health care, Anne Elizabeth Moore offers scalpel-sharp insight into the ways women’s bodies are subject to unspeakable horrors under capitalism.” —Chicago Tribune
Every day, heinous acts are perpetrated on women’s bodies in this political economy—whether for entertainment, in the guise of medicine, or due to the conditions of labor that propel consumerism. In Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes, award-winning journalist and Fulbright scholar Anne Elizabeth Moore explores the global toll of capitalism on women with thorough research and surprising humor. The essays range from probing journalistic investigations, such as Moore’s reporting on the labor conditions of the Cambodian garment industry, to the uncomfortably personal, as when Moore examines her experiences seeking care and community in the increasingly complicated (and problematic) American healthcare system. Featuring illustrations by Xander Marro, Body Horror is a fascinating and revealing portrait of the gore of contemporary American culture and politics.
OTHERPPL interview Anne about Body Horror (2023).
The Conversationalist excerpted the new essay, “A Partial Recounting of My Current Anxieties” (2023).
The Rumpus Q&A on Body Horror (2023).
The USC Bedrosian Center’s Bookclub Podcast recently featured Body Horror.
Doug Henwood spoke to Anne for Left Business Observer.
Anne was on Lumpen Radio’s Eye 94.
Chicago Woman asked Anne a few questions for Soulful Sunday.
LitHub‘s Matthew Sharpe spoke to Anne about horror movies, disease, and composting.
The Believer excerpted the essay “On Leaving the Birthplace of Standard Time.”
Anne visited Outside the Loop Radio at the World’s Greatest News! (WGN) to talk capitalism and lady-hate.
Largehearted Boy requested a Body Horror playlist.
WYCE’s Catalyst Radio had Anne on to talk media, misogyny, and capitalism.
Anne was interviewed on The Matthew Fillipowicz Show.
Chicago Magazine ran a short interview with Anne on Body Horror.
