After Women
After Women is a fictional novella exploring the ethos of the literary world, queerness, memory, and infatuation.
Forthcoming 2018 from Short Flight/Long Drive Books.
“Her books are poetic, intimate page-turners, and demonstrate Caldwell’s knack for slicing through the bullshit. One of the most endearing and exciting writers of a generation.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books
“Proving herself an invaluable voice in queer literature.”
—OUT Magazine
“I’ll read anything Chloe Caldwell writes. She’s a rare bird: fearless, dark, prolific, and truly honest.”
—Elisa Albert, author of After Birth
“Unfortunately, when women write or speak about themselves with brutal honesty, everyone has an opinion. Conflating confession with universality, this literature is often dismissed for lacking inclusivity. It’s as if society can only handle one woman — as long as she speaks on behalf of all women. Instead, we need more voices instead of asking women to speak for all women at all times.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
Legs Get Led Astray
Legs Get Led Astray: a distillation of what might be deemed the high hipster period, from 2002-2006. Interpol was on every iPod. Antony and the Johnsons brought out the sensitive goth in all of us. The Black Keys could not be found on a single car commercial. And if you don’t remember the specifics, Caldwell will remember them for you, dropping more band names than a scenester at a basement show.
—The L Magazine
Available now from Short Flight/Long Drive Books
“Legs Get Led Astray swells with a bruised innocence and self-indulgence reminiscent of two great story collections that preceded it, Susan Minot’s Lust and Mary Gaitskill’s Bad Behavior. Like theirs, Caldwell’s is a contemporary slice of sex and struggle.” –Bitch Magazine
“Legs Get Led Astray is a scorching hot glitter box full of youthful despair and dark delight. Tender and sharp, wide-eyed and searching, these essays have a reckless beauty that feels to me like magic.”
—Cheryl Strayed, author of WILD
“For the reader, going astray means getting happily lost in the prose of this daring, graceful, debut.”—Publisher’s Weekly, starred review
“The essays in this collection are as exuberant as they are sad. Her storytelling is as vulnerable as it is bombastic. These essays roll in gangsta, but wear freshly picked daisies in their hair.”
—Rookie
I’ll Tell You in Person
I’ll Tell You in Person is a candid and captivating account of attempts at adulthood and all the less-than-perfect ways we get there. Disarmingly frank essays on sexuality, celebrity, acne, wanting to write, and the eternal what-should-I-do-with-my-life. Exploring the boundaries between friends and family, hobbies and obsessions, and honesty and oversharing, Chloe Caldwell showcases an irresistible talent for navigating the infinite territory of in-between.
Purchase from Coffee House, Emily Books, Powell’s Books, The Strand, IndieBound, or Amazon.
Featured in Los Angeles Review of Books, Allure, Nylon, The Village Voice, Book Riot, Flavorpill, Huffington Post, OUT Magazine , & Poets & Writers
“The type of book that is tempting to describe as a bible for young women.”—Nylon
“Caldwell is refreshingly regular and, German sojourn notwithstanding, unspoiled. Not once does the word ‘internship’ appear.”
—The Village Voice
“Caldwell writes about babysitting as John McPhee writes about rivers.”—Vol. 1 Brooklyn
“This book kicked my ass, heart and brain. It’s wildly entertaining and deeply loving. A heroic triumph in intrepid self-observation. A testament to the heights and depths the personal essay can reach. Caldwell shows how, in writing about ‘nothing’, we can discover the everything.”
—Emma Jane Unsworth, author of Animals
“Chloe Caldwell has written the ideal “female companion book”—meaning, while reading, I felt like I had a female companion with at all times. On the subway, I had my female companion. In my backpack, I had my female companion. On the sidewalk, I held on tight to my female companion, and pedestrians would stare at her, so boldly yellow in my hands. Pretty soon my female companion took up residency in my head. She helped me process the world with sass, spite, sympathy, and wit. I don’t know what could be better than a book that allows you to be alone but to never feel lonely. I’ll Tell You in Person does this and more. It projects the most potent afterglow, and Caldwell is a writer beyond gifted and generous. She is like a sage. ”
—Heidi Julavits, author of The Folded Clock
Women
Women is a novella that explores an affair and the aftermath between two women nineteen years apart. The book is about the blurred line of female friendship, about being a daughter, a mother, a woman, and a friend. It’s an urgent recall of a heartbreak and a stark identity in crisis.
Available from Hobart, Powell’s, Amazon, & The Strand. Ebook available from Emily Books.
Featured in The New York Times Style Magazine, Time Out New York, Playboy, The Guardian, The Oregonian, Buzzfeed, and OUT Magazine.
“Women by Chloe Caldwell is a beautiful read/a perfect primer for an explosive lesbian affair/an essential truth.”
—Lena Dunham
“Women is a book of raw emotion and wrenching introspection.”—Barnes & Noble
“Chloe Caldwell’s slim and sensual novella, Women, defies labels. It is not merely a love story, or a story of sexual awakening, or a coming out story, but a story about two women wrecking each other’s lives during an illicit whirlwind romance.”
—Fjords Review
“Women captures the agonizing luminescence of young adulthood and the people who define and destroy us. It is one of the only books I can name that deals exclusively with female characters, with men pushed so far into the periphery they’re practically in orbit. It is a breathless comet-book that commands an evening with your heart, and a next-day pass-along to all the women you treasure.”
—Bustle
