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Chelsea Girls
A groundbreaking and candid coming-of-age novel.
276 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1994
About the author
Eileen Myles
108 books983 followersEileen Myles is a LAMBDA Literary Award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 676 reviews
May 13, 2014
I really love lesbians. I'm not sure why this is. It's not that I love them all -- there are plenty of lousy lesbians out there -- but for some reason a person being a lesbian improves my chances of liking her by maybe a factor of five. I feel like lesbians often have a good perspective on things. Many are good at being self-aware without being self-absorbed. There might be something about being a lesbian that improves people's personalities, or maybe girls with good heads on their shoulders wind up turning out gay? Whether it's correlation or causation or whatever is impossible to know, but there it is, that's how I feel even if it's inappropriate to say.
I feel like there's a specific personality type that a certain kind of lesbian has, that I find really wonderful and appealing. I can't really explain what it is or what it has to do with their being lesbians, except that Eileen Myles reminded me of a couple of my favorite lesbian friends and it's not just the having-sex-with-other-women thing, there's something else too. It's this special kind of reasonableness, and a charmingly clear-eyed cockiness and mild narcissism mixed with honest self-deprecation, a disarming candor and humor and insight into things. I don't know where that comes from, or if it has anything to do with not getting wrapped up with men, or, alternatively, with having to deal with the craziness of women in relationships? Probably neither.
Anyway, I really took to Eileen Myles, which is why I enjoyed this book, even though it's not the kind of thing I'd normally get into. It's a series of autobiographical stories about growing up in Massachusetts (because I'm a sucker for stories about bad kids in the early-to-mid 1960s, I liked these best) and then being an alcoholic scenester poet back when New York was still cool. It took me a little while to decide I liked Myles or cared about what she had to say, but once I did she just seemed like such a great lesbian, like an older, more famous version of some of my friends, and I got kind of mesmerized hearing stories about her life. Even while I'd be thinking, "Why am I reading this boring story about getting drunk and a bunch of stupid relationship drama in the seventies?" I somehow wasn't bored, I was engaged. I'm not a fan of our age's preoccupation with memoir and reality TV and blogs and whatnot, and since this is kind of the literary equivalent of that, I'm surprised I liked it, but I did. I liked her writing style. I haven't read Myles's poems because poetry scares me, but maybe someday I will.
I feel like there's a specific personality type that a certain kind of lesbian has, that I find really wonderful and appealing. I can't really explain what it is or what it has to do with their being lesbians, except that Eileen Myles reminded me of a couple of my favorite lesbian friends and it's not just the having-sex-with-other-women thing, there's something else too. It's this special kind of reasonableness, and a charmingly clear-eyed cockiness and mild narcissism mixed with honest self-deprecation, a disarming candor and humor and insight into things. I don't know where that comes from, or if it has anything to do with not getting wrapped up with men, or, alternatively, with having to deal with the craziness of women in relationships? Probably neither.
Anyway, I really took to Eileen Myles, which is why I enjoyed this book, even though it's not the kind of thing I'd normally get into. It's a series of autobiographical stories about growing up in Massachusetts (because I'm a sucker for stories about bad kids in the early-to-mid 1960s, I liked these best) and then being an alcoholic scenester poet back when New York was still cool. It took me a little while to decide I liked Myles or cared about what she had to say, but once I did she just seemed like such a great lesbian, like an older, more famous version of some of my friends, and I got kind of mesmerized hearing stories about her life. Even while I'd be thinking, "Why am I reading this boring story about getting drunk and a bunch of stupid relationship drama in the seventies?" I somehow wasn't bored, I was engaged. I'm not a fan of our age's preoccupation with memoir and reality TV and blogs and whatnot, and since this is kind of the literary equivalent of that, I'm surprised I liked it, but I did. I liked her writing style. I haven't read Myles's poems because poetry scares me, but maybe someday I will.
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November 16, 2015When I was seventeen, I had a mad crush on a musician who lived in my town. He was in his twenties and on the cusp of fame in the about-to-explode Pacific Northwest grunge scene of the late 1980s. Years later, I would flip through a scrapbook and find a poster from a concert held at a community center in town during the autumn I crushed on that man/boy. Well, would you just look at that: Fall 1986, Nirvana headlining the Hal Holmes Community Center. I'd forgotten about the concert, held in the same auditorium where the library offered its semi-annual book sale and the community choir practiced, until a scrap of a flyer brought it back. My Proustian moment. A poster for your madeleine. No, the musician of my senior year crush was not a member of Nirvana. He's still out there, recording, touring, clean after years of addiction.
But in those brief weeks we hung out, I read what he read, which was a lot of Richard Brautigan. My Richard Brautigan phase. I think I probably should have read Chelsea Girls then, too. I might have found a closer connection to the young Eileen, drunk and drugged and drifting between Boston and New York in the 1960s and 70s. An era that has always captivated me with its rawness, its coolness, its profound awakening. Mostly, I found Chelsea Girls to be profoundly sad.
I'm not entirely certain what to make of something called an "autobiographical novel", which appears to be publisher-speak for "memoir", except to take these stories at face value and assume they are true. These are the events which shaped Myles the poet, a creative life she terms as a "cultural accident." They are raw wild strange aching innocent confusing brutal funny. What else could they be, for an accidental, incidental, monumental poet.
I fell into Chelsea Girls after reading an outstanding interview with Eileen Myles in The Paris Review 214 (Fall 2014), loving what bits of her poetry I've encountered, and realizing Myles was yet another large hole in the Literary Education of Julie. I'm glad to have read Chelsea Girls but there was something about the diffident style of it that left me on the outside, a bit cold, holding onto the thin bars of the playground looking in, not sure if I really wanted to be invited to play.
But in those brief weeks we hung out, I read what he read, which was a lot of Richard Brautigan. My Richard Brautigan phase. I think I probably should have read Chelsea Girls then, too. I might have found a closer connection to the young Eileen, drunk and drugged and drifting between Boston and New York in the 1960s and 70s. An era that has always captivated me with its rawness, its coolness, its profound awakening. Mostly, I found Chelsea Girls to be profoundly sad.
I'm not entirely certain what to make of something called an "autobiographical novel", which appears to be publisher-speak for "memoir", except to take these stories at face value and assume they are true. These are the events which shaped Myles the poet, a creative life she terms as a "cultural accident." They are raw wild strange aching innocent confusing brutal funny. What else could they be, for an accidental, incidental, monumental poet.
I fell into Chelsea Girls after reading an outstanding interview with Eileen Myles in The Paris Review 214 (Fall 2014), loving what bits of her poetry I've encountered, and realizing Myles was yet another large hole in the Literary Education of Julie. I'm glad to have read Chelsea Girls but there was something about the diffident style of it that left me on the outside, a bit cold, holding onto the thin bars of the playground looking in, not sure if I really wanted to be invited to play.
August 9, 2016
"I lay on the bed, fascinated by the acrid taste of piss, yet horrified at the inadequacies
of my tape collection."
of my tape collection."
February 8, 2017
I read the greater part of this book on a plane ride home, next to a man who looked sponsored by real-tree. His phone's background was a picture of his toddler son on top of his tractor. After he started white-knuckling the communal armrests, it became pretty obvious that this earth-oriented man was terrified of flying. Poor guy. During the flight's turbulence, he became desperate for a conversation partner. We chatted--he showed me more pictures of cars with babies on top of them--and eventually he asked me what I was reading. Knowing that I was going to be beside this guy for the next three hours, I gave an obfuscatory answer that avoided all the drugs and lesbians--but I also didn't stop him from flipping through the pages. "This book is crazy. It's all about drugs and lesbians," he told me. He was freaked, but he was such a good sport about it. I could tell you what I got out of this book, but I think it's more fun to imagine that guys perspective. I regret not giving him my copy.
///
"It's so easy to give up--to live in dreams with yourself instead of in stories with a friend" p.212
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"It's so easy to give up--to live in dreams with yourself instead of in stories with a friend" p.212
August 15, 2021
This is genuinely the worst book I ever read. The only logical explanation for why it has more than one star is that I exist as a side character in a Truman Show type simulation that centers around a tote bag septum ring instagram poet Bushwick girl with finance parents who pretends she’s poor
February 4, 2019
Aburrido, soso, repetitivo, estilo plano... "Pero es que la autora lo escribió cuando estaba enganchada al speed". Y ahí tenéis la moraleja, no escribáis drogados. No sale bien. A menos que seáis Stephen King.
September 18, 2020
Only a few pages in, I was beginning to regret my choice. Should I just put this book back down and pretend I've never even aimed for reading it? What is this?
It doesn't get more sex-drugs and rock'n roll than this. Written in the 90s, American poet Eileen Myles retells fictionalised stories of how she's experienced the three preceding decades. With an Catholic background and alcoholic father, she's out to live through the wildest of times in 70s New York.
"See, I come from an alcoholic household, and resultantly kind of don't react to violence. I think it terrifies me, but I am so drawn to it. I never hit anyone, but I would love to kill a lot of people."
Myles writing is aggressively straight-forward and careless. Sentences like "it was a gorgeous sunny day, my best friend had just died and I was getting Alice some pills, one last trip, and I felt great" confused me more than they entertained me at first, but as I was thinking about whether to abandon this, I found myself being drawn in.
What irritated me at first, suddenly became humorous. Myles doesn't censor her words, she's unabashed and disarming. She's here to have sex and a good time and these stories are here to prove it. Short and fast-paced anecdotes, these tales hit you with a load of names (who are all these people?), a lot of drugs and a lot of fun. There isn't much direction to them, but then I'd claim that there wasn't to Myles's life either. This is raw, funny, and wild.
It doesn't get more sex-drugs and rock'n roll than this. Written in the 90s, American poet Eileen Myles retells fictionalised stories of how she's experienced the three preceding decades. With an Catholic background and alcoholic father, she's out to live through the wildest of times in 70s New York.
"See, I come from an alcoholic household, and resultantly kind of don't react to violence. I think it terrifies me, but I am so drawn to it. I never hit anyone, but I would love to kill a lot of people."
Myles writing is aggressively straight-forward and careless. Sentences like "it was a gorgeous sunny day, my best friend had just died and I was getting Alice some pills, one last trip, and I felt great" confused me more than they entertained me at first, but as I was thinking about whether to abandon this, I found myself being drawn in.
What irritated me at first, suddenly became humorous. Myles doesn't censor her words, she's unabashed and disarming. She's here to have sex and a good time and these stories are here to prove it. Short and fast-paced anecdotes, these tales hit you with a load of names (who are all these people?), a lot of drugs and a lot of fun. There isn't much direction to them, but then I'd claim that there wasn't to Myles's life either. This is raw, funny, and wild.
January 7, 2019
Good lord but it’s hard to write reviews these days! I seem to have said it all before, and I wonder how I had the gall to say it in the first place. But then I read something like Chelsea Girls and I feel as if I have to say something, if only to complete that indirect self-portrait I sketched with all those other reviews. Fact: I love this book. I think it’s genius, at least in parts. I’ve even developed a kind of a crush on its author (no doubt aided by the Mapplethorpe cover photo). I call her Eileen – never Myles. (In contrast, though I loved her book just as much, Janet Frame is always Frame when I discuss her.) I feel a kind of direct or semi-direct link, I guess, to the “real”/inner Eileen Myles, probably as much from the language as what it describes. “I would like to tell everything once, just my part, because this is my life, not yours.” Man, this is raw, but with a tone I don’t think I’ve encountered before. Halfway through it struck me, she’s kind of a Knut Hamsun for the 1980s, half-starving and writing on napkins and stubbornly convinced of her genius. Then later I thought, this could almost be Raymond Carver – the lack of affect, the drunken tragic aspect – except it couldn’t be, not at all, because Carver is so contrived compared to this; Carver is fiction, whereas in Eileen Myles’s case, well, who can tell? There’s a story here, “1969”, about what I presume is (what certainly seems to be) the young Eileen’s real experience of Woodstock and it is brutal. Excoriating. “You can’t force a story that doesn’t want to be told.” I can only presume this story wanted to be told. I say it’s about Woodstock but really it’s about the lead-up to it, about the young Eileen (or Leena) in a sharehouse one summer getting drunk and slowly breaking up with a boyfriend and carrying around Crime and Punishment and hoping she’ll finish it but continually getting distracted by parties and pick-ups and some hopped-up hulk who sexually abuses her in her own home while her friends stand watching.
Meantime this acid-head named Paul is out on the porch laughing – “a good position to take”, says Eileen, given visitors like the Ice Man. And somehow, because despite that “everything clicked for a moment that summer” and she was suddenly beautiful she doesn’t have a date, it transpires that Paul will accompany her to Woodstock. It’s quite a trip. Before she even gets there she’s drunk, so much so that she flips out in wonder at a young couple’s baby at a roadstop and then blacks out in the backseat of the car and doesn’t wake till next morning, whereupon she drinks warm wine and smokes pot all day and winds up as follows:
Lucky for her, Jimi Hendrix offers some last-minute transcendence. His “Star-Spangled Banner” announces “the end of America [...] the thing we were all waiting for and had come to hear”. And then they’re off, Leena and Paul, who have somehow incongruously become almost a couple, back to Boston as conquering heroes, where Leena meets her old (or really, current) boyfriend and “because he was the real world, where I belonged” gets back together with him, and never calls Paul even when they meet one night and she likes him more and more. And then she never sees him again, except for once, and... well you’ll have to read it for yourself. Suffice it to say it’s like a punch in the gut. The whole story. A sucker punch. 1969? How could it have been otherwise? How could we have believed what we were told?
I don’t want to wallow in love for Eileen Myles, especially since, typically, I’m unsure what I love about her so much. It’s true, some stories fall flat here as compared to others, but the whole is also more than the sum of its parts – a kind of jagged self-portrait. “If the end of one’s youth is a thin slice of cheese I ate mine standing in that room,” she writes in “My Couple”, and by then, three-quarters through the book, you know just what she means. In “Violence Towards Women” (what a story!) she writes of a young woman gang-raped at her country-town high school who changes her name, changes cities, and moves on. “They’re all men’s names, what’s the difference. Her name is Jane. Janey.” I was floored. Such a simple truth: they’re all men’s names. Of course! Well, it took Eileen Myles to really bring it home to me.
But it’s not all heavy. I’ll end on a light note. She’s watching a magician at a kid’s party and comes up with this:
Yeah well, not so effectively in Eileen Myles’s case as it transpires, though this book testifies to the hunger years. Sort of. Did I mention the sex? That’s one thing Knut Hamsun’s protagonists never seemed to get much of. But Eileen, once she navigates her way through hetero, goes from sexual strength to strength. And the honesty of this – of her transition from outwardly straight to entirely gay – is another thing I don’t think I’ve ever encountered. She’s scarred by hetero sex, sure, but never really forsakes it, just moves on, and misses aspects of it and doesn’t miss others, but it’s clear she’s thrilled by who she is. Still and all, it’s a sad if exuberant ride. It’s wild. Funny. Graceful and wise. I love this book. I really do. Thank you, Eileen.
Who was responsible for the Ice Man showing up? The Ice Man was Jimmy Burns, big, big guy who tended to pin girls (like me) against the wall in front of their boyfriends and say, “You know I think you’re really cute,” and cop a feel and give them a big wet smooch and no one dared lift a finger. It was really terrifying. To be pinned like that by one of the biggest guys you had ever seen who was drunk out of his mind in front of ten of your good friends who just stared in horror. “She doesn’t know I’m teasing. Do ya, Linda?” The Ice Man was reputed to have killed and maimed many kids in Watertown during his wonder years.
Meantime this acid-head named Paul is out on the porch laughing – “a good position to take”, says Eileen, given visitors like the Ice Man. And somehow, because despite that “everything clicked for a moment that summer” and she was suddenly beautiful she doesn’t have a date, it transpires that Paul will accompany her to Woodstock. It’s quite a trip. Before she even gets there she’s drunk, so much so that she flips out in wonder at a young couple’s baby at a roadstop and then blacks out in the backseat of the car and doesn’t wake till next morning, whereupon she drinks warm wine and smokes pot all day and winds up as follows:
Lying on the ground in the mud, in the rain, I felt like the whole place had been turned into a giant mouth. It was terrifying. The sounds of feet traipsing all night long up and down the muddy hills turned into a gigantic rhythm like a mouth smacking its lips continually. [...] A speedfreak with spidery repetitious gestures danced in front of us all night long. Kind of a conductor. Way down at the bottom of the hill the musicians were like dark trees lined in light wavering in front of our eyes. One more, just one more uttered some distant part of my will or mental faculty forcing my attention to stagger along with the entertainment. This was history. It was really horrible but my alternative was to try and sleep on the muddy rag. Impossible.
Lucky for her, Jimi Hendrix offers some last-minute transcendence. His “Star-Spangled Banner” announces “the end of America [...] the thing we were all waiting for and had come to hear”. And then they’re off, Leena and Paul, who have somehow incongruously become almost a couple, back to Boston as conquering heroes, where Leena meets her old (or really, current) boyfriend and “because he was the real world, where I belonged” gets back together with him, and never calls Paul even when they meet one night and she likes him more and more. And then she never sees him again, except for once, and... well you’ll have to read it for yourself. Suffice it to say it’s like a punch in the gut. The whole story. A sucker punch. 1969? How could it have been otherwise? How could we have believed what we were told?
I don’t want to wallow in love for Eileen Myles, especially since, typically, I’m unsure what I love about her so much. It’s true, some stories fall flat here as compared to others, but the whole is also more than the sum of its parts – a kind of jagged self-portrait. “If the end of one’s youth is a thin slice of cheese I ate mine standing in that room,” she writes in “My Couple”, and by then, three-quarters through the book, you know just what she means. In “Violence Towards Women” (what a story!) she writes of a young woman gang-raped at her country-town high school who changes her name, changes cities, and moves on. “They’re all men’s names, what’s the difference. Her name is Jane. Janey.” I was floored. Such a simple truth: they’re all men’s names. Of course! Well, it took Eileen Myles to really bring it home to me.
But it’s not all heavy. I’ll end on a light note. She’s watching a magician at a kid’s party and comes up with this:
He was such a kit magician – wands with banners that said boom on one side and had a picture of a rabbit on the other. I was fascinated by the relative sincerity of his delivery. I started to think of this suburban backyard magician as someone less smart but slightly more successful than most poets I know. It’s not like we can farm ourselves out to bar mitzvahs and weddings like saxophone players can, or this guy. Even a clown can work the kid circuit. How have poets managed so utterly to get no piece of the pie. It’s some kind of trick, a vanishing act that we have performed on ourselves.
Yeah well, not so effectively in Eileen Myles’s case as it transpires, though this book testifies to the hunger years. Sort of. Did I mention the sex? That’s one thing Knut Hamsun’s protagonists never seemed to get much of. But Eileen, once she navigates her way through hetero, goes from sexual strength to strength. And the honesty of this – of her transition from outwardly straight to entirely gay – is another thing I don’t think I’ve ever encountered. She’s scarred by hetero sex, sure, but never really forsakes it, just moves on, and misses aspects of it and doesn’t miss others, but it’s clear she’s thrilled by who she is. Still and all, it’s a sad if exuberant ride. It’s wild. Funny. Graceful and wise. I love this book. I really do. Thank you, Eileen.
December 6, 2017
Two stars. Reading this book increasingly became a chore as it wore on. I don't think it should be billed as a 'novel'. It is much more consistent with a collection of short stories which aren't really stories so much as they are long-form poems. Although the stories have plenty of alcohol, drugs and sex, I found them kind of boring. Her style is frenetic and disjointed and it was hard to follow the narrative at times. I did enjoy some of the more poetic passages and I will look to read some of her collections of poetry.
August 10, 2021
I'm not sure what I want to sy about the book. I did very much enjoy it. Bit of a crass laungage used, something that I often don't like in the books I read. (I often stop reading if I find it having to much of a foul laungage as I feel it's somewhat of an unnecessary way of proving a point). But I have to say it quite worked in this. It was a very intruiging memoir of Eileen Myles, even though I don't know who she is but I enjoyed reading her journey of coming of age
September 2, 2017
A quintessential strung-out '90s novel set in both NYC and Boston. The flat affect and stream-of-consciousness style are no doubt familiar to readers of Brett Easton Ellis and others, perhaps a bit too much so. Still, Myles is a quick wit and every ten or so pages she'll turn a phrase that just floors you.
October 20, 2020
For all the amazing things this could say, it is bogged down with a refusal to accept its own readership, undercut contexts, and feels like a lovesong to its own author. I understand how crucial this book was for lesbian experiences in the 80s, but this feels less like a breakthrough and more like a glorified diary; active reading should be more invitational than this.
April 15, 2019
Eileen makes me feel loved and in love, brings me closer to myself!
February 7, 2024
insane descriptions of vaginas
May 6, 2010
i think if i would re-read this collection of memoir-esque vignettes by Eileen Myles, i would probably read one a week, out of order until i was finished. Then each one would stand on its own and be able to to savored or scorned by its own merits. Unfortunately, i read it pretty much cover to cover (well, almost, couldn't quite finish it) and honestly became quite bored with it. At times brutal, hilarious, fierce, blase, superficial, a well of unending sadness, these glimpses of life, of lives, that would otherwise mostly be at turns over looked or fetishized is a worthy read. I recommend reading it like it was a collection of individual histories, stories - i think then it would capture the light/dark of her voice.
March 22, 2019
"I love butch ne'er-do-wells," I told a friend in explanation of my crush on Eileen Myles. And if there was a ever a book about that particular type, their alcohol-soaked debut Chelsea Girls is it. Is it a novel? A series of connected short stories? A memoir in pieces? An extended prose-poem? Much like the indistinct area between butch and trans man that Myles now inhabits, the answer isn't either/or but rather yes, and. This book is sleazily sexy and funny and sad, even when sometimes its main purpose seems to be establishing the mythic figure of Eileen Myles, Famous Poet. And honestly, I'm here for it.
February 17, 2020
I admit it, I skimmed a lot of this, yet it feels like it took me forever to read. Some stories? chapters? were intriguing, but for the most part Chelsea Girls did not suck me in. Through out the whole book I felt like I was at a party with an acquaintance who was telling stories of people I didn't know and had no context to care about.
August 13, 2024
Honest. Too honest. Really actually sickeningly honest. March said it best “Eileen Myles is loathsome and fantastic.”
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July 15, 2021Nämen snälla vad är det här? Som att vara med om magi p�� riktigt. En helt underbar textvärld att få vara i. Lever upp, känner på riktigt, vill knarka. Haha. Nej, men ni fattar.
December 18, 2017
If on the off chance civilization survives the next few years, I hope ‘Chelsea Girls’ graduates from “cult classic” to “canon”. Imagine -- we could have a canon that was sexy and ferocious and fun to read! The best pieces here are brilliant about growing up a poet, a lesbian, an alcoholic, and a genius. Even the less successful pieces are very useful tutorials on new ways of putting paragraphs together, you know, for those of us who are sick to death of the traditional forms of the story or the novel. (And this collection proves, again, that we can and must feel free to call /anything/ a novel, even a ham sandwich, chips, and a pickle.) And the SEX -- the sex is -- the sex is the way sex actually feels. That was an important surprise for me. I mean, I’m a queer guy and so most of the sex in this book was sex with an entirely different selection of parts than any sex I’ve ever had and yet -- it came so much closer than most writing to -- what sex actually feels like. I’m grateful I got to learn that. So, just because all your hippest lesbian friends are carrying this book -- don’t imagine it’s somehow /reserved/ for them. No way! Steal it when they’re not looking. OK, /borrow/ it. It’s a brilliant frolic and cautionary tale, as well as merciful company for anyone struggling to survive as a poor and horny artist.
December 12, 2022
Never was able to pinpoint exactly why this didn't quite worked for me beyond brilliant brief flashes & intermittent stretches; reaching the end I finally started feeling more on its wavelength... but even then it just never really gelled for me. To be clear I suspect this is more a commentary about me than the book itself, & even before finishing was acknowledging I will need to give this another go someday. It happens!
"You can’t force a story that doesn’t want to be told."
"You can’t force a story that doesn’t want to be told."
April 3, 2018
The best thing about this book is that I finished it.
November 28, 2020
On the front cover it says "A novel." But the back blurb calls it "cobbled together memories." Online one finds "stories" as well, this from the author herself. Perhaps best to consider it a "memoir" as it's fragmentary and non-linear, so perhaps outside of a straight autobiography, if you want to hold the form to those rules. At any rate, we have no way of knowing if the texts "cobbled together" here are actually at all imaginary--or is "fictionalized" merely a way of changing names to protect the innocent here? Thus fiction only to expose greater truth?
Well, all expectations aside then--since we can't really know much of anything or really calibrate how genre will effect our reading--let's see how the text presents itself? As I said, fragmentary and non-linear, it follows a single "I" apparently, Eileen Myles--the author or a figure like Dante's pilgrim?--whose life experiences line up perfectly with what we know of the author, poet Eileen Myles. Thus I rate this at 4 stars, an engrossing series of memoirs about a person interesting to me because a NYC Bohemian poet. The artistry sells a genre (memoir) I'm not all that interested in, as well as a certain amount of recognition value--I, too, lived in the East Village (only three blocks from Eileen), if for a much shorter time, and also write, and also came from a suburb, thus I reveled in the kindred-spiritness of it, while also voyeristically enjoying the difference of her life from mine--queerness, femaleness, babyboomerness v. my gen-X-itude. All-in-all a great read due to great writing technique and the form of free-form memories swirling. She really captures perfectly the way we speak of ourselves, tell each other stories, recount memories at a later date, full of digressions and re-framings. The text itself claims she is a great talker even as it proves it through writing.
I can't wait to find a volume or two of Ms. Myles poetry to read now. She is a great stylist.
Well, all expectations aside then--since we can't really know much of anything or really calibrate how genre will effect our reading--let's see how the text presents itself? As I said, fragmentary and non-linear, it follows a single "I" apparently, Eileen Myles--the author or a figure like Dante's pilgrim?--whose life experiences line up perfectly with what we know of the author, poet Eileen Myles. Thus I rate this at 4 stars, an engrossing series of memoirs about a person interesting to me because a NYC Bohemian poet. The artistry sells a genre (memoir) I'm not all that interested in, as well as a certain amount of recognition value--I, too, lived in the East Village (only three blocks from Eileen), if for a much shorter time, and also write, and also came from a suburb, thus I reveled in the kindred-spiritness of it, while also voyeristically enjoying the difference of her life from mine--queerness, femaleness, babyboomerness v. my gen-X-itude. All-in-all a great read due to great writing technique and the form of free-form memories swirling. She really captures perfectly the way we speak of ourselves, tell each other stories, recount memories at a later date, full of digressions and re-framings. The text itself claims she is a great talker even as it proves it through writing.
I can't wait to find a volume or two of Ms. Myles poetry to read now. She is a great stylist.
September 6, 2024
I spent the majority of the time wondering if Eileen Myles knew what paragraphs and punctuation are. A lot of it seemed like long-form poetry. The way it was written wasn't for me. Some stories were so boring I had to skip halfway through.
The lesbian sex and drugs mildly entertained me but that didn't out weight the fact that I thought some of the stories were genuinely horrible and the piss sex/ incest and rape was a bit much.
The lesbian sex and drugs mildly entertained me but that didn't out weight the fact that I thought some of the stories were genuinely horrible and the piss sex/ incest and rape was a bit much.
April 13, 2024
The Dyke I’d Like To Be fr. Always candid, always truthful, digressions in a real honest and truthful way. Parts did make me cry. A really perfect book
July 29, 2023
no doubts in meiner toplist. oh so viel gefühlt
May 3, 2024
Au début je n'ai pas aimé. À cause d'un grand désordre : des morceaux de vie contés sans chronologie, des individus qui apparaissent dans le récit sans trop de contextualisation, des phrases parfois longues où l'on note l'absence de ponctuation, des descriptions très détaillées. Un fouillis qui reflète en réalité le chaos des évènements qui y sont relatés. J'ai eu du mal à tenir le fil conducteur et dès qu'il me semblait l'avoir enfin il m'échappait.
Puis j'ai commencé à apprécier ce positionnement, cette intention littéraire, et à l'envisager comme ce qu'il est : un réèl exercice de littérature. C'est comme lire le brouillon publié d'un œuvre finale jamais parue. Et puis surtout je suis tombée dans le récit. Des chapitres qui décrivent l'enfance avec parfois un effet madeleine de Proust, et par-dessus tout : l'existence lesbienne. L'enfance lesbienne, les amitiés lesbiennes, le genre lesbien. Être lesbienne à 10 ans, à 15, à 20 et à 30. Le savoir ou pas. "Ce dont je ne savais pas quoi faire c'étaient les hommes".
Un livre avec des chapitres que j'ai aimés, d'autres moins. Au final, c'est comme une grande marée que l'on voit se retirer et qui nous fait penser qu'on atteindra jamais la mer avant qu'elle nous revienne en pleine figure lorsqu'on s'apprête à quitter la plage. J'aurais aimé le lire mieux.
Puis j'ai commencé à apprécier ce positionnement, cette intention littéraire, et à l'envisager comme ce qu'il est : un réèl exercice de littérature. C'est comme lire le brouillon publié d'un œuvre finale jamais parue. Et puis surtout je suis tombée dans le récit. Des chapitres qui décrivent l'enfance avec parfois un effet madeleine de Proust, et par-dessus tout : l'existence lesbienne. L'enfance lesbienne, les amitiés lesbiennes, le genre lesbien. Être lesbienne à 10 ans, à 15, à 20 et à 30. Le savoir ou pas. "Ce dont je ne savais pas quoi faire c'étaient les hommes".
Un livre avec des chapitres que j'ai aimés, d'autres moins. Au final, c'est comme une grande marée que l'on voit se retirer et qui nous fait penser qu'on atteindra jamais la mer avant qu'elle nous revienne en pleine figure lorsqu'on s'apprête à quitter la plage. J'aurais aimé le lire mieux.
July 12, 2023
For what has been marketed as a novel, there isn’t much direction to these fast-paced anecdotes of Eileen Myles’ wild life - a direct reflection of Myles’ experiences.
Whenever I found myself getting sucked into a story, it would end, and I hoped we’d return to it in an upcoming chapter, but I’d be left with my thoughts and wonder about what the hell I just read. The chapter on Myles’ father’s alcoholism was one I wish had gone on longer simply for the reason that it was written with such grace and innocence for something so dark and raw.
I really did enjoy when Myles showed their power of poetic phrasing by creating this drug and sex infused dream world (the chapter titled Leslie was incredible), but I honestly was grasping for more of the “unabashed lesbianity” that this book claims to possess.
As someone who has read Bukowski (with a grain of salt), I’ve solidified that I am not the biggest fan of reading about the riotous pursuits of most 20th century writers. But I am glad that I had the opportunity to read the upbringing of a founding lesbian of the writing world.
On another note, I have a good feeling I’d take to Myles’ poetry.
Whenever I found myself getting sucked into a story, it would end, and I hoped we’d return to it in an upcoming chapter, but I’d be left with my thoughts and wonder about what the hell I just read. The chapter on Myles’ father’s alcoholism was one I wish had gone on longer simply for the reason that it was written with such grace and innocence for something so dark and raw.
I really did enjoy when Myles showed their power of poetic phrasing by creating this drug and sex infused dream world (the chapter titled Leslie was incredible), but I honestly was grasping for more of the “unabashed lesbianity” that this book claims to possess.
As someone who has read Bukowski (with a grain of salt), I’ve solidified that I am not the biggest fan of reading about the riotous pursuits of most 20th century writers. But I am glad that I had the opportunity to read the upbringing of a founding lesbian of the writing world.
On another note, I have a good feeling I’d take to Myles’ poetry.
October 15, 2018
Eileen Myles has a beautiful way of describing all the confusion and feelings that happen when you are young and trying to figure out life and who you are; and you just go with your gut feelings and reactions even though you know deep down inside you probably shouldn't; but you do it anyway. Sometimes it turns out amazing and all you hoped it would be and a lot of times it turns to shit but it is always worth it because you are having an adventure and experiences that add to who you are as a person. I love their writing and the way they can describe all these churning emotions and good decisions and so many bad decisions so perfectly. 5 stars and best reads pile. I devoured this book. There is some pretty tough stuff to read in this book and this is pretty autobiographical so then you know they had it rough at times, but it is so worth it to glimpse into the world of such a beautiful honest soul.
January 25, 2024
a revolving door of girlfriends and jobs and friends that lend money. like if 'just kids' were written by eve babitz. yeah. could get a little too stream-of-consciousness-drinks-and-drugs at times. but i like her as a character and the photo on the front is so gorgeous i couldn't stop looking at it.
also this was my accompaniment during my solo dinner where i stared at the harbor at night and looked studious in my old glasses and rolled up brooks brothers shirt from listen and it felt very atmospheric. towards the end she's talking in a kitchen with a friend late and says something about the world being as big as the night and i really liked that.
also this was my accompaniment during my solo dinner where i stared at the harbor at night and looked studious in my old glasses and rolled up brooks brothers shirt from listen and it felt very atmospheric. towards the end she's talking in a kitchen with a friend late and says something about the world being as big as the night and i really liked that.
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