Bri Lee is an author and freelance writer. She is also an editor, speaker, academic, and photographer who is qualified to practice law (but doesn’t). Her first book, Eggshell Skull, was published in June 2018. It won several awards, including the Biography of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards, and received many more listings, including being longlisted for The Stella Prize. Bri’s new book, an essay called Beauty, will be out in November.
Today, Bri’s on the blog to answer some of our questions about her new book. Read on!
Tell us about your book, Beauty.
BL: Beauty is a combination of memoir, cultural criticism, and a touch of literary criticism and philosophy. Sort of like a giant personal essay, really. It is set during and after my tour for Eggshell Skull and asks questions about how we judge ourselves and others based on our bodies.
What inspired you to write this book?
BL: Readers of my first book will recognise some of the themes – the connection between our bodies and our ideas of success and motivation. These were issues I had been chewing over for a long time, but it was the things I was seeing and hearing on book tour that were pretty strange that made me want to document it all somehow; try and get to the bottom of something.
Why do you think the idea of physical perfection is so tied to our self-worth? What role do you think social media has played in the perpetuation of unachievable beauty ideals?
BL: Our bodies and grooming choices combine to create the fastest and most immediate way we communicate all kinds of priorities and belonging – class in particular. Our society consistently refuses to accept that being from a low socio-economic background is one of the biggest contributors to likelihood of obesity – we keep circling around this idea that it’s exclusively a matter of each individual’s choice and control. Slim people are deemed more hard-working, more capable of discipline and self-control. That whole package.
The sense of self-worth we get from this (either heightened or lessened) has been hugely exacerbated by the evolution of the smart phone over the past decade. Being photographed does funny things to our expectations of ourselves and others, including how we prioritise physical appearance. Fifteen years ago most people were only photographed on special occasions like weddings. Now the high standards we used to have for special occasions are the new minimum everyday standards.
I believe all this is exacerbated by the gig economy and people’s perceived professionalism also being much more frequently and extremely associated with their appearance. It’s just unprecedentedly pervasive – images of ourselves and others everywhere all the time. Don’t even get me started on the filters and editing apps.
What is the biggest challenge you faced while writing Beauty?
BL: Writing the book made me ask some hard questions about my own complicity in the system I was trying to critique. It also asks some questions about other people’s complicity in the system that hurts people. To paraphrase from The Beauty Myth, I don’t want to question what makes people feel good, only what makes them feel bad in the first place. It’s a fine and difficult line to balance.
You’ve written that this book is dedicated to “the people who wrote to me after Eggshell Skull saying it made them feel a little stronger within their own bodies.” What do you hope readers will discover in Beauty?
BL: Gosh, I just hope it gives them some language. That’s been huge for me – I couldn’t really understand or deal with this problem because I didn’t have the right words. Reading the books I reference in Beauty and writing about it myself gave me the tools I needed to make up my own mind. People don’t need to agree with me 100% or anything, but there are concepts in here I can’t believe I lived without. Well, I can believe it because I did and was much less comfortable every single day.
Eggshell Skull was a phenomenal success that helped bring about much-needed reforms to Queensland’s sexual assault laws. Has the release of that book altered your perception of the power of words to make change?
BL: Yes, but not so much for the grand, public-scale stuff. It’s the hundreds of individual emails that make me believe in the power of stories to lead to change. I have lost count of the number of people who have made huge and specific changes to their lives, or actions within their lives, after reading my book. The book changed their life. That effects the people around them and eventually the system too, when there’s enough, and it’s part of a wave, which it is. Absolutely.
Who are some of your favourite writers and why do you love their work?
BL: Ooooeee tough question so I’m going to go with writers whose books I’ve read very recently: Bruny by Heather Rose was a total romp, The Weekend by Charlotte Wood was a masterclass and gave me much to ruminate over, The Secret History by Donna Tartt is so very juicy, and Fleishmann is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner makes you laugh a lot then stabs you in the gut.
What’s the last book you read and loved?
BL: (See above, haha.)
And finally, what’s up next for you?
BL: I have to keep my head down and focused on the work or I go to bad head-places. I don’t like sitting around and waiting to read reviews (anxiety!) or focusing too much time and energy on what’s already been done (stagnant!) so I’m working on another essay and also my first novel. Fiction is so hard, why didn’t anyone tell me? I’m kidding, they all told me, I didn’t listen.
Thanks Bri!
Listen to our podcast with Bri Lee!
Beauty
A powerful meditation on beauty and body image from the author of Eggshell Skull.
You were either fit and trim or you weren't working hard enough. Your body was how you conveyed wealth and status to your peers, it was a personality trait, a symbol of goodness and values: an ethical ideal. In recent decades women have made momentous progress fighting the patriarchy, yet...
Read a Q&A with Caroline Hirons!
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