First published 2019
E. Jean Carroll notices a pattern among her eight million Elle Magazine readers. Their problems all trace back to men. She loads her blue-haired poodle Lewis Carroll into her car and sets off on a cross-country journey. Her mission takes her to every town named after a woman from Eden, Vermont to Tallulah, Louisiana. She asks each woman she meets the same question: What Do We Need Men For? The road trip becomes more personal when Carroll creates her list of "The Most Hideous Men of My Life." She examines her own dark encounters with the opposite sex. Carroll reflects on advice she would give her younger selves, from Miss Cheerleader USA to Miss Indiana University to the journalist and advice columnist she became. She weaves together stories from the road with her own experiences of bad behavior from mafia bosses, media titans, boyfriends, husbands, and a serial killer. Her final answer to the central question will shock and delight readers.
Genres: abuse, gender-studies, feminism, autobiography, contemporary, memoir, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: road-trip, self-discovery
Setting: Eden, Louisiana, Tallulah, Vermont
Period: 21st-century
288 pages · Hardcover · St. Martin's Press
Content warnings: abuse, sexism