Joy

About the Book

Unlike its eponymous, ironic, title, the characteristic 20th century preoccupation with discovering meaning seems to be at the thematic heart of this book. The possibility of love as a candidate returns again and again. The work is often cerebral seeming to exist in a world of thought only, which makes incursions into the sensual the more striking.

About the Author

About the Author Joy Esterberg (1942– ) was influenced early on by the school of writing that identified experience with occupation. To that end, she has sustained herself by a variety of jobs: dime store clerk, blueberry raker, soda jerk, waitress, telephone operator, clothing saleswoman, switchboard operator, reader to the blind, hat-check girl, cocktail waitress, caseworker for the New York City welfare department, employment counselor, bartender, private air travel club salesperson, crisis hotline counselor, coed dormitory residence director, New York City cab driver, high school English teacher, daycare nursery owner, University English instructor, corporate trainer, hair salon owner, and ghost writer. She lives and works in New York City.