Memoirs Of An Ex Prom Queen

Now with a new preface: The “furious, fiercely funny, provocative” novel about female rebellion written decades before the #MeToo movement (Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance). Sasha Davis, smart and pretty, was once an all-American teenage beauty queen. Full of potential, she was the only student at her Midwestern high school to attend college on the East Coast. But soon her promise begins to falter. After starting graduate school in New York, Sasha gets married and drops out to take a clerical job. Consigned to the role of trophy wife, and already feeling old at twenty-four, she lives in fear of turning thirty—the year, in her mind, when her beauty will fade and life as she knows it will end. Only after a lot of sexual adventures—as well as a second marriage and motherhood—will she finally begin to figure out what’s gone wrong . . . Poignant and breathtakingly honest, Memoirs of an Ex–Prom Queen remains a feminist landmark—a unique blend of “fun” (Jezebel) and “devastating” (The Boston Globe). “This story, told with astringent wit, explores every facet and cliché of what it means to grow up female and beautiful.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A vivid reminder of just how much―and sometimes, how little―has changed for women . . . Typing prowess and wedding-night virginity may no longer be expected, but Shulman’s tale of Sasha Davis’s struggle to find herself amid conflicting cultural messages about beauty, brains, and sex will be resonant for many more years to come.” ―Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once “An extraordinary novel.” ―Newsweek

A memoir of spiritualism and self-discovery from the acclaimed, award-winning author At fifty, Alix Kates Shulman, author of the celebrated feminist novel, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, left a city life dense with political activism, family and literary community, and went to live alone on an island off the coast of Maine. On a windswept beach, in a cabin with no plumbing, power, or telephone, she found that she was learning to live all over again. In this luminous, spirited book, she charts her subsequent path as she learned not simply the joys of meditative solitude, but to integrate her new awareness into a busy, committed, even hectic mainland life. “A ten-year voyage of discovery . . . Shulman's honesty and sense of inquiry carry us with her all the way--could even, if we were willing, change our lives.” —San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle

A teenage runaway from Maine gets an eye-opening introduction to life on the streets of New York City Robin catches a bus from her home in Maine to New York City to escape her tyrannical father. With no money and little hope of finding a decent job, the sixteen-year-old girl is easy prey for a hard-luck pimp named Prince. He quickly gains Robin’s trust and introduces her to the seedy underbelly of the city, a world of sex, drugs, and lies in which she must fight to survive. A homeless woman named Owl, who was once beautiful and bold, befriends Robin as they both struggle to take control of their lives. On the Stroll is a moving, gritty picture of the people who find themselves on society’s margins and a heartrending look at the ultimate costs of homelessness and prostitution.

Heather and Mack McKay seem to have it all: wealth, a dream house in the suburbs, and two adorable children along with the nannies to raise them. But their marriage has lost its savor: she is a frustrated writer and he longs for a cultural trophy to hang on his belt. During a chance encounter in LA, Mack invites exiled writer Zoltan Barbu—once lionized as a political hero, now becoming a has-been—to live with him and his wife in their luxurious home. The plan should provide Heather with literary companionship, Mack with cultural cachet, and Zoltan himself with a pastoral environment in which to overcome his writer’s block and produce a masterpiece. Of course, as happens with triangles, complications arise—some hilarious, some sad—as the three players pursue a game that leads to shifting alliances and sexual misadventures. Shulman pokes fun at our modern malaise (why is having it all never enough?), even as she traces the ever-changing dynamics within a marriage. Ménage is a bravura performance from one of America’s most renowned feminist writers.

DIVDIVAn honest, unflinching reflection on the meaning of family, from the author of the bestselling novel Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen/divDIV /divDIVAlix Kates Shulman wasn’t looking forward to helping her aging parents clean out their house and prepare for the final years of their lives. She had fled suburban Cleveland at age twenty to carve out her own life in New York City. But as she began dismantling their house of forty years, the task evolved into a precious learning experience she would never forget. /divDIV /divDIVShulman discovers the lives of two colorful, vibrant people from whom she remained distant while pursuing a literary career. She finds herself grappling with regret and seeking redemption in the search for what it means to be a good daughter. With warmth and insight, Shulman sheds light on a complex, painful event that many adults eventually face—the final trip home./div/div

DIVDIVA provocative coming-of-age chronicle of the Women’s Liberation Movement, as seen through the eyes of a young woman who flees midwestern suburban life to find her true self in 1950s New York City /divDIV /divDIVEighteen-year-old Zane IndiAnna feels trapped by life in her small midwestern town. So she sets out for New York, landing in Greenwich Village during the revolutionary days of Allen Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac. Zane’s story of rebellious political awakening plays out over the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, mirroring the rise of the Women’s Liberation Movement and bringing the evolution of American feminism to vivid life. /divDIV /divDIVStirring and unforgettable, Burning Questions is a timeless story filled with humor, passion, and revolutionary spirit./div/div

"Offering a compelling and cohesive narrative of Willis's liberationist "transcendence politics," the essays--among them previously unpublished and uncollected pieces--are organized by decade from the 1960s to the 2000s.... [It]concludes with excerpts from Willis's unfinished book about politics and the cultural unconscious, introduced by her longtime partner, Stanley Aronowitz. An invaluable reckoning of American society since the 1960s, this volume is a testament to an iconoclastic and fiercely original voice. "--