Fade Away

Prozac Nation (1995)
Radical Sanity: Commonsense Advice for Uncommon Women (1999)
Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (1999)
More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction (2002)
By Elizabeth Wurtzel
Weight: 3 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating to the AKF with other items, unless you want it



I will be very satisfied when I rid my life of this book. It is another one I have held onto for far too long with no explicable reason. I can see how Wurtzel may appeal to a young, depressed, and dramatic youth population, but it is hard to imagine her outside of that realm. I bought her when I was at that stage, but it was already starting to be too much back then, and it definitely is now.

I picked the book up, scanned some of the writing, tried to get some inspiration to write this blog entry, became increasingly irritated, fought it, so on and so forth. This might be the 10th time I have done this over the last few months. It is all so frustrating. On the one hand, depression and addiction are very serious issues. I do not want to downplay these components of her life or take away from the understanding that she needed a lot of help. I don’t want other people to read my words and think that no one understands what they are going through if they relate to Wurtzel. I am tempted to go the route of she had everything…what the fuck?! But, I know that even people with “everything” have their own demons, secrets, and inner turmoil. I have been that what-the-fuck-person—people have looked at me that way. I have looked at me that way. Sometimes, I still do. It just depends on whose perspective you are seeing the world through.

Wurtzel has written two memoirs now. One dealing with depression and one with addiction. She wrote a less-than-insightful women’s studies book entitled Bitch (though, if I had to pick a favorite…). A useless and tiny book called Radical Sanity and then renamed The Secret of Life? She has been successful. She has been a bestseller. She has been offered interesting and enviable writing jobs, and she has lost interesting and enviable writing jobs. She has a massive ego that makes it difficult not to view her with disdain. She can seem so utterly selfish. She appears to love herself just as much as she hates herself, and she loves to hate herself. At least, as of the time this was published in 2002.

I am over Wurtzel. I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. In fact, I started this thinking I was just getting rid of More, Now, Again, but I think I will go ahead and get rid of all the others I can find so I don’t have to do this again. It is making me queasy.