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greensalbet's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
5.0
Jami Attenberg is a fierce, funny writer who holds nothing back about her peripatetic life -- from sleeping in friend's spare rooms, crashing on the living room couches of recently married couples with children, to renting shit hole apartments in Brooklyn. She works shitty jobs by day while carving out time to write and research in her off hours. She relishes books, writing, travel, and solitude and she's a social drug user who likes to drink.
This is a memoir about Attenberg's journey to becoming a professional writer. After graduating from Buffalo Grove High School, Attenberg is accepted into a writing program at Johns Hopkins University. In a poetry class she encounters a professor who encourages her to try her hand at writing fiction. In her fiction writing classes she meets a fellow student who pushes her to be a stronger writer while taking advantage of her in a drunken sexual encounter.
She opens the book with a list of the various jobs she's held -- from the mundane to the ridiculous -- and takes us with her on a self-funded driving trip to promote her first books. Shortly after the publication of her third novel, she learns her publishing company and agent are canceling her contract.
The books winds back and forth between sharply written essays about Attenberg's past and present. She plumes the depths of her childhood, shares her struggles trying to stay economically above water in Brooklyn, moves around the country, yet always writes -- with a steadfast commitment to follow her creative calling.
This is a memoir about Attenberg's journey to becoming a professional writer. After graduating from Buffalo Grove High School, Attenberg is accepted into a writing program at Johns Hopkins University. In a poetry class she encounters a professor who encourages her to try her hand at writing fiction. In her fiction writing classes she meets a fellow student who pushes her to be a stronger writer while taking advantage of her in a drunken sexual encounter.
She opens the book with a list of the various jobs she's held -- from the mundane to the ridiculous -- and takes us with her on a self-funded driving trip to promote her first books. Shortly after the publication of her third novel, she learns her publishing company and agent are canceling her contract.
The books winds back and forth between sharply written essays about Attenberg's past and present. She plumes the depths of her childhood, shares her struggles trying to stay economically above water in Brooklyn, moves around the country, yet always writes -- with a steadfast commitment to follow her creative calling.
fbroom's review
4.0
Jami Attenberg is a lovely writer. I've enjoyed reading these essays a lot even when sometimes I didn't even care about the subject of the essay itself. I just enjoy her writing style so much. Some of these essays / chapters were fantastic and some of them I didn't care for as much like for example learning about what grandfather / dad did. Obviously, this is something that she wanted to research and write about. But to me, I only wanted to read about her life which is probably isn't fair of me.