Overview

"Lori Horvitz grew up ashamed of her Eastern European Jewish roots, confused about her sexuality, and idolizing the ""shiksa in her living room,"" a blonde all-American girl whose photo came in a double frame and was displayed next to a family photo from a bar mitzvah. Unable to join the ""happy blonde families,"" she becomes a ""hippie chick"" who travels the world in search of ... something. The Girls of Usually chronicles each trip, each romance, each experiment in reinventing herself that draws her closer to discovering the secret door through which she can escape from deep-rooted patterns and accept her own cultural, ethnic, and sexual identity."

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9780578833118

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Reviews

Reading Lori Horvitz's The Girls of Usually feels like calling up an old friend and talking late into the night. Deeply intimate and wickedly funny, these are essays to be treasured. -Stephanie Elizondo Griest, author of Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana. Disconnection, alienation, secret and thwarted desire thread through these pieces, along with Horvitz's shame about her lesbianism and Jewish origins. The wriggling away from these twin shames is powerfully documented. Horvitz seems comfortable only in hindsight, yet she stays a steady narrator, guided by fear yet still managing adventure. -Liz Baudler, March 6, 2015, Newcity Lit When I first heard Lori Horvitz read some of her memoir essays, I laughed so hard my jeans burst open at the waist. The Girls of Usually may be like nothing you've ever read. But as in all the very finest writing, you'll see yourself-and maybe find yourself. -Lynda Schor, author of Sexual Harassment Rules and The Body Parts Shop. Raw and stirring, late teens, twenty-somethings, and older will appreciate the wisdom Horvitz shares about relationships, both physical and emotional, as she travels the world. -Pallas Gates McCorquodale, Spring 2015, Foreword Reviews Horvitz writes with a fine balance of wit and poignancy, deftly delivering her stories in a way that feels both personal and universal. The Girls of Usually is a read that stays with you-unsettling, complicated, and wholly rewarding. -Artis Henderson, author of Unremarried Widow When I say Horvitz is funny, I don't just mean she is witty or playful with words or cleverly amusing (though she is those things, too). I mean she is David Sedaris-level funny, especially when she writes about her early youth. -Sharon Harrigan, February 2015, The Nervous Breakdown And as a storyteller, Horvitz is a matzo ball of fire..So pour yourself a glass of grape juice and propose a toast to The Girls of Usually. -Allison Fradkin, May 2015, Curve

Author Information

Lori Horvitz' writing has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Epiphany, Redivider, South Dakota Review, Hobart, Chattahoochee Review, The Guardian, and Hotel Amerika. She has been awarded writing fellowships from Yaddo, Ragdale, Brush Creek, Cottages at Hedgebrook, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Blue Mountain Center. Professor of English at UNC Asheville, Horvitz received a PhD in English from SUNY at Albany, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College.

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