Beauty Tips From My Dead Sister

"For frowsy eyebrows, use an old toothbrush. Brush upward and go with the grain. Ignore the tuft that forks the wrong way. One imperfection is charming.

When you get a keloid scar from picking a pimple, just pencil it in with eyeliner to make a faux beauty mark.

Rape can happen any time. Maybe it happens when you’re 15 and dressed like Madonna — fishnets, shorts, a long-sleeved crop top, your clip-on ponytail swaying as you clip-clop down the steps in knee-high boots — all black, even your lipstick. Or maybe it happens some other day, when you’re in your sweats at a party in the suburbs. Two boys, a door shuts."

Namwali Serpell is a Zambian writer and associate professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. The Old Drift (Hogarth), her first novel, is available now.

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