From Curlers to Chainsaws

In the old analog days, one knew better than to use a mechanical calculator to divide a whole number by zero. The machine would tear itself apart looking for the right answer in the cogs and gears of the endless stuttering. The toothsome essays found in From Curlers to Chainsaws propel themselves through the same worrying transmission, discover relentlessly revved and ready answers in the existential engineering of our everyday appliances and devices. These are works of stunning effort and raw oomph. These writers ratchet and roll, calculate and calibrate. They enter elegantly the number of ways nothing goes into the infinite.

—Michael Martone, author of Michael Martone and Winesburg, Indiana

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From Curlers to Chainsaws makes stops along the way to visit prosthetics, lawnmowers, typewriters, vibrators, washing machines, and on and on, from traditional women’s gear to equipment we’re all using now, praise be. This is a book full of mechanized pleasures and frustrations unto torture, but more important, a book of women’s voices so clear and diverse and funny and heartbreakingly individual that you hurry from one to the next, even as you wish to linger longer with all. A smart and useful and wise anthology, this is an entertainment to be cherished and a resource to be treasured.

—Bill Roorbach, author of Life among Giants, Temple Stream, and The Remedy for Love

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2016 IPPY/Independent Publisher Book Award, Gold Medal

— 2016 IPPY/Independent Publisher Book Award, Gold Medal