Overview

An NPR Best Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year How does a girl fashion herself into a woman? In this richly illustrated memoir, writer Patricia Volk juxtaposes her two childhood idols to find her answer. Her mother, Audrey, was an upper-middle-class New Yorker and a great beauty—meticulously groomed, proudly conventional. Elsa Schiaparelli was an avant-garde fashion designer whose creations broke every rule and elevated clothing into art. While growing up in Audrey's strict household, Patricia read Schiap's freewheeling autobiography and was transformed by it.             Shocked weaves Audrey's traditional notions of domesticity with Schiap's often outrageous ideas, giving us a revelatory meditation on beauty and on being a daughter, sister, and mother—and demonstrating, meanwhile, how a single book can change a life.

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A visually evocative coming-of-age story about fashion, femininity, and the often complicated mother-daughter dynamic. -- Entertainment Weekly A brilliant, boisterous memoir that breaks new ground in terms of the memoir form and also the archetypal story of the mother-daughter bond. . . . I cannot tell you, apart from its other virtues, how much fun this memoir is to read. . . . Shocked is a physically beautiful book, but like Schiaparelli's designs, it commands deeper attention because of the wit and originality that inspire its composition. --Maureen Corrigan, NPR Books Inspiring. . . . A moving personal sesay about the female relationship to luxury and beauty. --Joan Juliet Buck, W magazine We feel life's potential swirling around Volk as she lovingly chronicles the unique paths of her two muses. Volk ultimately embraces her mother's love, but is now also able to break free, to see 'the ripe kaleidoscopic pure pleasure of looking, ' Schiap-style. -- O, The Oprah Magazine A meditation on the plastic possibilities of womankind and a very special treat. -- The New York Times Book Review Delightful. . . . Disarming, eccentric. . . . Ms. Volk is thoroughly likable, warm and generous, with a well-tuned ear and a vivid sense of humor. -- The Wall Street Journal Warm, funny, sharp-eyed. . . . 'Schiap planted the idea that imagination trumped beauty, that being different might be a virtue, ' Volk says. And that there is, after all, more than one way to be a woman. -- More Magazine Intimate and idiosyncratic. . . . Volk's remembrances provide a breath of balmy air. . . . Shows us that a third-party mediator can reconcile our differences, reassuring both mother and child that the girl will find her own way in the end. -- Chicago Tribune [Volk] expertly juxtaposes the details of her family's midcentury Manhattan upper-middle-class life with the life Schiaparelli was leading in Rome a

<p> Volk weaves together stories about her mother (a great beauty who worked as a hostess at her husband's Garment District restaurant Morgen's West) and Schiaparelli. The designer was thought of as a belle laide, which translates literally as 'pretty ugly' but means a woman who is striking, rather than beautiful. Volk's mother took her beauty very seriously and considered her face her fortune. The Surrealist-influenced Schiaparelli compensated for her less-than-classically-lovely appearance by becoming a designer whose extreme personal chic and original designs made her a style leader. There are many photographs in the book that depict Volk's family and Schiaparelli's friends and pivotal designs. . . . The new book, of course, is encased in a jacket of shocking pink (Schiap's signature color). -- Women's Wear Daily <br> Novelist and memoirist Volk's sophisticated vision unfolds with the study of two very different but very glamorous women . . . As funny as it is poignant, Volk's work employs a combination of words to live by, rich vignettes, and photographs to show how she learned what it meant to be a woman, and how all it takes is one book to transform a young person's world. Full of high fashion, mink furs, and family, the book manages to weave a tale that is sure to stick with readers long after the last page. --Melissa Culbertson, Library Journal (starred review)<p> At the beginning of Shocked, Volk offers an intriguing premise: that each of us during childhood, usually somewhere between the ages of ten and twelve, happens upon a book whose contents prove transformative. A book that suggests that we need not follow any path in life set before us by parents, teachers, or others in authority, but may instead find both success and happiness by blazing our own trail. At the end of her book, Volk kindly lists some of the transformative books of notable persons. And we learn that for President Barack Obama, that book was The Power Broker by Robert Caro

Volk weaves together stories about her mother (a great beauty who worked as a hostess at her husband's Garment District restaurant Morgen's West) and Schiaparelli. The designer was thought of as a belle laide, which translates literally as 'pretty ugly' but means a woman who is striking, rather than beautiful. Volk's mother took her beauty very seriously and considered her face her fortune. The Surrealist-influenced Schiaparelli compensated for her less-than-classically-lovely appearance by becoming a designer whose extreme personal chic and original designs made her a style leader. There are many photographs in the book that depict Volk's family and Schiaparelli's friends and pivotal designs. . . . The new book, of course, is encased in a jacket of shocking pink (Schiap's signature color). -- Women's Wear Daily Novelist and memoirist Volk's sophisticated vision unfolds with the study of two very different but very glamorous women . . . As funny as it is poignant, Volk's work employs a combination of words to live by, rich vignettes, and photographs to show how she learned what it meant to be a woman, and how all it takes is one book to transform a young person's world. Full of high fashion, mink furs, and family, the book manages to weave a tale that is sure to stick with readers long after the last page. --Melissa Culbertson, Library Journal (starred review) At the beginning of Shocked, Volk offers an intriguing premise: that each of us during childhood, usually somewhere between the ages of ten and twelve, happens upon a book whose contents prove transformative. A book that suggests that we need not follow any path in life set before us by parents, teachers, or others in authority, but may instead find both success and happiness by blazing our own trail. At the end of her book, Volk kindly lists some of the transformative books of notable persons. And we learn that for President Barack Obama, that book was The Power Broker by Robert Caro

Author Information

Patricia Volk is the author of the memoir Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family, as well as four works of fiction. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and has taught at Columbia University, New York University, and Bennington College. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, New York, The New Yorker, and Playboy. She lives in New York City.

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