Creep is Myriam Gurba's informal sociology of creeps, a deep dive into the dark recesses of the toxic traditions that plague the United States and create the abusers who haunt our books, schools, and homes. Gurba studies the ways in which oppression is collectively enacted, sustaining ecosystems that unfairly distribute suffering and premature death to our most vulnerable. Yet identifying individual creeps, creepy social groups, and creepy cultures is only half of this book's project—the other half is examining how we as individuals, communities, and institutions can challenge creeps and rid ourselves of the fog that seeks to blind us.
Gurba writes the personal and political with invigorating conviction ... This voice is so strong that it can threaten to obscure the truth. Some exchanges from her past are written with almost fictional simplicity ... And for all her humor, Gurba’s jokes — of which she is rarely the butt — belie a fundamental self-seriousness, directing the reader’s gaze away from her most compelling character: herself ... oth her earnestness and the urgent pulse of the material make for a narrative that is less certain and more tender. To read Gurba at her best is to feel both the triumph of defiant self-regard as well as the soft contours of the striving it takes to acquire, preserve and restore.
Outstanding ... A tender and beautiful ode to her Mexican and Mexican-American heritage ... Each piece is layered and rich. Gurba skillfully captures how all the concerns she examines here intersect. It will challenge readers in all the right ways to reconsider assumptions and biases, to scrutinize American systems and structures, and to rethink how vulnerability, power, pride and dread are expressed and analyzed. Gurba is a force to be reckoned with.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
