Prozac Nation : Young and Depressed in America
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Description
Full of promise is how anyone would have described Elizabeth Wurtzel at age ten, a bright-eyed little girl who painted, wrote stories, and excelled in every way. By twelve she was cutting her legs in the girls' bathroom and listening to scratchy recordings of the Velvet Underground. College was marked by a series of breakdowns, suicide attempts, and hospitalizations before she was finally given Prozac in combination with other psychoactive drugs, all of which have worked sporadically as Elizabeth's mood swings rise and fall like the lines of a sad ballad. This memoir, both harrowing and hilarious, gives voice to the high incidence of depression — especially among America's youth. "Prozac Nation" is a collective cry for help, a generational status report on today's young people, who have come of age fully entrenched in the culture of divorce, economic instability, and AIDS. "This private world of loony bins and weird people which I always felt I occupied and hid in, " writes Elizabeth, "had suddenly turned inside out so that it seemed like this was one big Prozac Nation, one big mess of malaise. Perhaps the next time half a million people gather for a protest march on the White House green it will not be for abortion rights or gay liberation, but because we're all so bummed out." Writing with a vengeance (Nirvana, Joni Mitchell, and Dorothy Parker all rolled into one), Elizabeth Wurtzel will not go gentle into that good night. She wants off medication, she wants a family, and most definitely, a life worth living.
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Product details
- Paperback | 368 pages
- 133 x 210 x 25mm | 363g
- 01 Sep 1997
- Penguin Putnam Inc
- Riverhead Books,U.S.
- New York, United States
- English
- 2nd ed.
- 1573225126
- 9781573225120
- 43,428
Table of contents
Prologue: I Hate Myself and I Want to Die
1. Full of Promise
2. Secret Life
3. Love Kills
4. Broken
5. Black Wave
6. Happy Pills
7. Drinking in Dallas
8. Space, Time, and Motion
9. Down Deep
10. Blank Girl
11. Good Morning Headache
12. The Accidental Blowjob
13. Woke Up This Morning Afraid I Was Gonna Live
14. Think of Pretty Things
Epilogue: Prozac Nation
Afterword (1995)
Acknowledgments
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1. Full of Promise
2. Secret Life
3. Love Kills
4. Broken
5. Black Wave
6. Happy Pills
7. Drinking in Dallas
8. Space, Time, and Motion
9. Down Deep
10. Blank Girl
11. Good Morning Headache
12. The Accidental Blowjob
13. Woke Up This Morning Afraid I Was Gonna Live
14. Think of Pretty Things
Epilogue: Prozac Nation
Afterword (1995)
Acknowledgments
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Review quote
"Wrenching and comical, self-indulgent and self-aware, Prozac Nation possesses the raw candor of Joan Didion's essays, the irritating emotional exhibitionism of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and the wry, dark humor of a Bob Dylan song."—The New York Times
"[Wurtzel] is smart, she is funny...she is thoughtful and...she is very, very brave. Wurtzel portrays, from the inside out, an emotional life perpetually spent outrunning the relentless pursuit of what she describes as a black wave, often sacrificing her likability on the altar of her truth."—Vanity Fair
"A very important book, particularly to the countless number of people who aren't sure what's wrong with them but are suffering from the negative thinking, erratic behavior, and dark moods associated with clinical depression. A powerful self-portrait...well worth reading"—San Francisco Bay Guardian
"The saddest, funniest, and ultimately, most triumphant book about youthful depression I've come across. It reads like a mixture of J.D. Salinger and Sylvia Plath, with some Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen thrown in for good measure...[Wurtzel] is one canny and entertaining observer of her generation: if you've been wondering why Kurt Cobain meant what he did—what it feels like to be young, gifted, and black of spirit—this book is the CD, tape, video, and literary answer all in one."—Daphne Merkin, author of Enchantment
"A very good book, maybe even an important one, and the pain and despair Wurtzel describes are as real as they are excruciatingly rendered."—Mademoiselle
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"[Wurtzel] is smart, she is funny...she is thoughtful and...she is very, very brave. Wurtzel portrays, from the inside out, an emotional life perpetually spent outrunning the relentless pursuit of what she describes as a black wave, often sacrificing her likability on the altar of her truth."—Vanity Fair
"A very important book, particularly to the countless number of people who aren't sure what's wrong with them but are suffering from the negative thinking, erratic behavior, and dark moods associated with clinical depression. A powerful self-portrait...well worth reading"—San Francisco Bay Guardian
"The saddest, funniest, and ultimately, most triumphant book about youthful depression I've come across. It reads like a mixture of J.D. Salinger and Sylvia Plath, with some Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen thrown in for good measure...[Wurtzel] is one canny and entertaining observer of her generation: if you've been wondering why Kurt Cobain meant what he did—what it feels like to be young, gifted, and black of spirit—this book is the CD, tape, video, and literary answer all in one."—Daphne Merkin, author of Enchantment
"A very good book, maybe even an important one, and the pain and despair Wurtzel describes are as real as they are excruciatingly rendered."—Mademoiselle
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About Elizabeth Wurtzel
Elizabeth Wurtzel is the author of bestselling books including Prozac Nation, Bitch, and More, Now, Again. A Harvard and Yale Law School graduate whose work has appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, New York, The Guardian, and The Oxford American, she lives in New York City.
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