Cover of Chelsea Girls

Chelsea Girls

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.

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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 Girlscobbles together memories of Myles' 1960s Catholic upbringing with an alcoholic father, her volatile adolescence, her unabashed "lesbianity," and her riotous pursuit of survival as a poet in 1970s New York.

Suffused with alcohol, drugs, and sex; evocative in its depictions of the hardscrabble realities of a young artist's life; and poignant with stories of love, humor, and discovery, Chelsea Girlsis a funny, cool, and intimate account of a writer's education, and a modern chronicle of how a young female writer shrugged off the chains of a rigid cultural identity meant to define her.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 276 pages

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Liked Chelsea Girls? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Chelsea Girls. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Chelsea Whistle Shares queer, memoir, LGBT
  2. My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home Shares queer, LGBT, memoir
  3. Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home Shares queer, LGBT, memoir
  4. S/He Shares queer, LGBT, memoir

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“If you want more of the same (lgbt), start with these.”

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“If it was the queer that hooked you, try one of these.”

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“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

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