From James Hartley Books’ review:

(A) mix of cool humour, honesty and erudition runs like a seam through Confessions… which should be of interest to anyone working in the safety industry as well as anyone caught in a bad moment in life and looking to reboot. What makes Delmater´s book stand out is the writing, which is tough and sparse, although she disagrees. “I prefer to think of my writing as concise.  As Strunk and White’s immortal writing guide says, ´Omit useless words!´  That’s my motto.”

But what drives and differentiates the book from other memoirs, especially other safety-related memoirs, are Delmater´s experiences in a very male-dominated world.

Her book abounds with tales of daily struggles, small victories and scraps against sexism in the workplace, passive and aggressive, always told with that same wry humour – dry, New York humour – which pervades the whole book.

My favourite was an aside about wearing having to wear safety helmet in the office on site as, if she didn’t, any couriers or visitors arriving would straight away assume she was the flunky. “They´d stop, looking confused,” she writes. Wait a minute. Secretaries don’t wear hard hats. Once in a while they would even find the male admin without any assistance from me at all.” Being taken for a performance artist while on the job in a trendy East Village location was also up there.

 

Read the whole review here. And if you haven’t gotten your copy yet, you can get it at Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, or at iBooks.