Maris Kreizman always loved books and TV. As a self-described ambition monster, she once thought that if she worked hard and played by the rules, she would land her dream job in publishing and live happily ever after with a house, husband, good health insurance and fat 401(k).
Well, she got the husband and with him, the insurance. But alas, the rest was not be. In her debut essay collection, “I Want to Burn This Place Down,” the 40-something book critic, columnist for Lit Hub and erstwhile podcaster recalls a series of mini-awakenings in college and the New York publishing world in the 2000s that shook her faith in the American dream of her boomer parents.
“Common wisdom has it that people grow more conservative as they age,” she writes. “I’m the opposite, having moved further and further left with every year, growing more progressive as I, a straight cisgender white woman from a middle-class background, learn all the ways the world is rigged in my favor, even as I myself have been severely let down by the status quo.”
In the essay “She’s Lost Control Again” she writes with barely suppressed fury about how her lifetime struggle with Type 1 diabetes opened her eyes to the reality of the broken health care system, which “creates chaos for those without copious economic resources,” forcing people to turn to GoFundMe to pay for their insulin.
In a sweeter, more nostalgic register, she reminisces about her great-great-uncle Barney’s iconic clothing store in Manhattan and what it taught her about the predatory world of capitalism on steroids. She also considers her relationship with her older twin brothers, with whom she shared a love of cop shows. But while her faith in policing was deeply shaken by the murder of George Floyd and other police abuses, they ended up becoming cops with conservative views.
The title of the book hails from the final season of “Mad Men.” After Peggy and Joan have spent years “clawing their way to the middle” of their ad agency, it is bought out by a bigger firm whose new owners treat them with sexist contempt. After their first meeting, Peggy asks Joan if she wants to get lunch. To which Joan replies, “I want to burn this place down.”
Kreizman brings that incendiary tone to parts of the book, but others are infused with deep affection for her family, Jersey roots, geriatric pug Bizzy and life partner Josh. If you like her sassy voice, check out an earlier work, “Slaughterhouse 90210,” which paired passages from serious literature with pop culture images. In these troubled times, it’s sure to make you laugh.
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