Tangled

“Readers interested in the intersection of feminism and pop culture will be delighted.”
—Publishers Weekly

“With surprising storytelling, gorgeous prose, and deep research into racism and hair history, Mesle moves gracefully between the impact of popular hair icons like Jennifer Aniston and Farah Fawcett and her own life experience. Her incisive cultural criticism and unflinching self-awareness call out and question the power given to whiteness and women’s hair.”
—Elizabeth L. Block, author of Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing

“I could read Sarah Mesle on white women’s hair for hours. For days! Tangled is such an incisive, clarifying look at the meaning of white women’s hair: how it quietly wields power, announces dominance, and reasserts white women’s place in the social order. This is a fascinating, addictive read that will make you think differently about your hair—and every hairstyle around you.”
—Anne Helen Petersen, author of Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

“With agile prose and remarkable insight, Tangled exposes the political work that gets done when Americans assume white women’s hair has no political meaning. Many claim they want white people to confront their privilege to become allies and accomplices. Sarah Mesle more than answers that call; she equips others to join her.”
—Koritha Mitchell, author of From Slave Cabins to the White House

“With curiosity, insight, and careful reporting, Sarah Mesle’s Tangled uses the ponytails, bobs, and highlights of white women over the last half century to tell a story about race and gender. Entertaining and incisive, this work of criticism shows how hair—ever present but often overlooked—can be a tool of remarkable power.”
—Heather Radke, author of Butts: A Backstory

Sarah Mesle is a professor of writing at the University of Southern California and the author of Reasons and Feelings: Writing for the Humanities Now. The former senior humanities editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Mesle is also the founding co-editor of the LARB channel Avidly and the short-books series Avidly Reads. Mesle’s writing about gender, media, and culture has appeared in venues ranging from Studies in American Fiction and InStyle to the New York Times Magazine.

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