Chelsea Girls

by Eileen Myles

Book Overview

Available once again for a new generation of readers, the groundbreaking and candid coming-of-age novel in-real-time from one of America's most celebrated poets that is considered a cult classic. In this breathtakingly inventive autobiographical novel, Eileen Myles transforms life into a work of art. Told in her audacious voice, made vivid and immediate in her lyrical language, Chelsea Girls cobbles together memories of Myles' 1960s Catholic upbringing...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062394665
• ISBN13: 9780062394668
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Beautifully written memoir...

This book is a series of stories about the author's interesting East-Village life. The stories are NOT told in chronalogicalorder, but somehow seem to flow together seamlessly.From her small, working-class town childhood in Massachusetts, to her wild teen years, to multiple rapes, [bad] summer jobs, struggling NYC artists, drug addiction, and un-healthy lesbian relationships.... Myles covers all subjects.This book reads quickly, and is of particular interest to any young artist in NYC (or any major city.)Oh. And, by the way, the hardcover edition is absolutely beautiful - bound in cloth and in wonderful autumn colors!

A kinder queerer Henry Miller

Eileen Myles has an incredible gift for nailing down a moment, or for that matter, a sweep of years. Each image is carefully chosen and tacked into place, and what rises is the edifice of a life. The metaphor is probably too static. Myles's prose is exhilarating even at its bleakest, it's full of breathless speed. There's plenty that is bleak here--a sad alcoholic father who dies before his daugher's eyes; an awful, floundering gang-rape; poverty, drugs, booze, ambition thwarted and bitterly fulfilled. It's the great American sadness, and it would be unbearable if Myles didn't write with such wit, elegance, and an utter lack of self-pity. The writer that comes to mind is Henry Miller, but a Henry Miller who didn't hate women.