Summary

In Chapter 1, “Isn’t It Good?,” Biss recalls the difficulty of finding furniture that is of genuinely good quality. Biss reflects on how ‘consumer goods’ often serve only to increase a person’s consumerist impulses rather than satisfy them. In Chapter 2, “Slumming,” Biss recalls an apartment building in which she lived when she had less money. She reflects on how wealthy women in Victorian England often went to slums to recruit poor people as domestic servants. The wealthy women saw themselves as helping the poor, when in fact they were simply further exploiting labor. In Chapter 3, “Commercial,” Biss recalls when Wal-Mart shot a commercial in her home, using Black actors. Next door was the home of an actual Black family. Biss wonders why Wal-Mart did not simply film the actual Black family for the commercial. In Chapter 4, “Understanding...