Craigslist Confessional

April 27, 2020
Quartz columnist Bala makes an auspicious debut with a collection of true stories first published in her column. In 2014, Bala was a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., who was unhappy with her life and high-pressure job, but felt unable to complain about her seemingly privileged life to anyone. After she confided in a stranger, she went in search of similar stories from others. Her post on Craigslist, “Tell me about yourself,” yielded an influx of submissions, 40 of which are collected here. In one, a young undocumented man discloses the trauma of enduring a manipulative and ultimately acrimonious green card marriage. In another, a woman who feels lingering embarrassment over the extreme poverty in which she grew up works and hustles relentlessly in order to keep up an image of being “competent, educated, worthy, superior.” Elsewhere, a man who becomes a stay-at-home dad after suffering a back injury and losing his job confesses that he feels emasculated in the eyes of his wife. Fans of Chicken Soup for the Soul or Humans of New York will want to take a look. Agent: Jeff Kleinman, Folio.

May 15, 2020
Anthology of dramatic first-person testimonials collected by a driven author for whom a personal pastime became a public obsession. This book reflects the website CraigslistConfessional.com, which Bala developed due to dissatisfaction with her demanding career as an attorney and lobbyist. She describes her work as "a project about hearing and seeing what others don't--about pulling back the curtain that separates our secretive inner lives from our perfectly curated outer lives. My 'job' is to listen when no one else will." At first, she was only seeking mutual catharsis; eventually, "I amended my original Craigslist ad to include a plan: I wanted to write these stories down and hopefully, some day, publish them." She was so determined to pursue this that she curtailed her career to do so. The resulting volume is organized broadly, along the themes of "Love," "Regret," "Loss," "Identity," and "Family," with 40 subjects across a spectrum of gender, social class, and age. Bala deftly captures these diverse voices--some gloomy, others hopeful--resulting in lively, empathetic biographical tableaux. She stays attuned to her anonymous subjects' lived experiences, following arcs that sometimes lead from deviance or despair to redemption. One former prisoner notes after 15 years' imprisonment, "the outside is cruel. It doesn't care if you did the crime or you deserved your punishment, or you served your time." Many stories concern flight from addiction or abuse, such as that of a young woman still ashamed of her years as an escort during college: "I was constantly trying to convince myself that it wasn't so bad." Episodes of loss include an older man reeling from the death of an alcoholic wife ("Up until the very end, I thought I could cure her") and mothers haunted by the sudden deaths of children. Though some tales are maudlin or follow predictable patterns, readers should respond to the redemptive twist or optimism that often appears in the stories she has collected. A book that focuses appealingly on the visceral complexities of our private lives.

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June 1, 2020
It started with a single personal ad on Craigslist: tell me about yourself. Dea Bala never expected the outpouring of responses that would follow. She was working as a lobbyist when the idea was born: she'd chat up respondents on the phone or at a coffee shop and let them tell her about their lives. Dea Bala soon had to quit her day job to make time for all of the Craigslist sessions. She took notes during each conversation and journaled about the emotional experience to expertly inhabit the voice of each subject. What emerges is a collection of narratives, all in first person, of anonymous people revealing their deepest, darkest secrets; or at least the most poignant moments of their lives. Infidelity, addiction, loss, corruption, the search for unconditional love?reading these carefully, empathetically crafted monologues reveals how suffering is something we all have in common. Each tragedy or triumph is unique, but the intensity of feeling is not. Perfect for fans of Humans of New York and Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things (2012).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)