Frivolity: A Defense
Columbia University Press, fall 2026
Frivolity is an impassioned defense and dazzling survey, both erudite and nimble on its feet. In playful and candid prose, Jehanne Dubrow assembles a rich archive of frivolous scenes, from Jane Austen to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie via Susan Sontag. To speak of frivolity, as this brilliant book shows, is to speak of beauty, pleasure, and power. To take it seriously is, in fact, great fun.
—Jack Parlett, author of Flamboyance: The Power of Living Boldly
In 101 associative leaps, Jehanne Dubrow flits from one frivolity to another, wondering what her love of them might signify. From the pursuit of flawless skin to lists, punctuation marks, the color pink, perfume, and romance, Dubrow explodes the opposition between silly and serious, revealing the necessity of lightness. A whip-smart pleasure.
—Margot Singer, author of Underground Fugue
‘The frivolous is a splendid excuse’ says Jehanne Dubrow, and I agree: a splendid excuse for a wild and rangy essayistic exploration that constellates as it progresses, creating not a path but a map for readers to explore. What better topic for an essay? And what better mind to explore it than Jehanne Dubrow’s?
—Patrick Madden, author of Recenses/Recencies
The sheer scope of knowledge in Jehanne Dubrow’s Frivolity: A Defenseis dizzying: literary excursions meet film criticism and color theory; painting’s palette mixes with journalism; psychology and linguistics take on medicine and communication theory; pop culture shakes theology’s hand while looking askance at history and economics. The range of time is also impressive: this is a book that time-and-space-travels and bends minds as it goes. Frivolity is anything but frivolous in its defense of pleasure.
—James Allen Hall, author of Romantic Comedy
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