A blistering, galvanising essay from Eimear McBride, award-winning author of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing

The searing, must-read feminist essay from the author of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing 'Fearless ... A fierce and fascinating manifesto in McBride's persuasive prose' Sinéad Gleeson 'Formidable' Vogue In this galvanizing essay, Eimear McBride unpicks the contradictory forces of disgust and objectification that control and shame women. From playground taunts of 'only sluts do it' but 'virgins are frigid', to ladette culture, and the arrival of 'ironic' porn, via Debbie Harry, the Kardashians and the Catholic church - she looks at how this prejudicial messaging has played out in the past, and still surrounds us today. McBride asks - are women still damned if we do, damned if we don't? How can we give our daughters (and sons) the unbounded futures we want for them? And, in this moment of global crisis, might our gift for juggling contradiction help us to find a way forward? 'A satisfying feminist polemic' Susie Orbach 'Remarkable' Scotsman 'Eimear McBride is that old fashioned thing, a genius' Guardian

"A satisfying feminist polemic" - Guardian

"A fierce, clear-eyed examination of the myriad ways in which women are objectified ... remarkable" - Scotsman

"Formidable" - Vogue

"An invigorating call to refuse the disgust directed at women" - Herald

"McBride is a very skilful prose stylist and is indubitably right to be incensed at the double standards and sheer prejudice of our culture" - iPaper

"Something Out of Place is an erudite contribution to that growing impulse in contemporary nonfiction: to cast one's testimony out into the void in the hopes that another will answer, and then another and another, and that each will be as exactingly executed, as deeply nuanced as the one preceding it" - Irish Times

"A brief and vivid polemic about disgust and shame and how they are used to such successful effect to disempower women ... There is something very exciting about contemplating a future for women where our disagreements about how best to live don't translate into weakness and division" - New Statesman