Part One: Winter 1978
"Who Do You Think You Are, Young Lady?"
Captain of Justice
Power Paragraph
Real Women Don't Eat Dessert
Thunder Thighs
Sex Education
Chameleon
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
"That's My Girl"
The Lori Monument
Sorry About the Milk Shake, Mr. President
Day of Atonement
Part Two: Spring 1978
Please Help the Hungry
Lactose Intolerant
If You Can Pinch an Inch
Level F, Section Pink
Facts and Figure
Shrink Me
Absolute Delight
Don't Talk with Your Mouth Full
Chewing on Air
"Hello, Angels... It's Charlie"
E Is for Electrolyte
Part Three: Summer 1978
Breck Girl
Fractions
Brownie
Camp Cedars
Nora
Hey, Taxi
Shereen's Jeans
Life without Andy Gibb
Cutting the Fat
Secretary School
North Star
Do Not Resuscitate
Stick Figure
Eggshells
You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Lori Gottlieb is the author of the national bestseller Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self and a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, People, Slate, Self, Glamour, Elle, Salon, and the Los Angeles Times. She is also a frequent commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered.
“A smart, funny, compassionate journal of the author’s bout with anorexia at age 11.” —Entertainment Weekly“It reads like a novel…absolutely gripping.” —Boston Globe“Compelling…Hopefully, young Gottlieb will stand as a patron saint for girls vulnerable to eating disorders and the adults who should be caring for them.” —Booklist“Poignant…Gottlieb is dead-on about society’s irrational attitudes towards women’s bodies.” —Washington Post Book World“Lori Gottlieb’s approach is compassionate, and very, very funny. More than just a book about anorexia, Stick Figure is an entertaining and thoughtful coming-of-age story that deals with an almost universal theme—negotiating the minefields of early adolescence and living to tell the tale.” —Martha Manning, author of Undercurrents“What happens when a young girl from Beverly Hills trips on the fallacies of family and friends, then gets saturated by society’s worship of the too thin? She almost dies…Gottlieb tells all this with an earnest narration that is funny at times but always tragic. And although Lori steps deeper and deeper into her illness, there is no self-pity. The mood is simply: This is what happened to me.” —Seattle Times“Lori Gottlieb’s eleven-year-old self is a singular storyteller of unblinking candor and precocious insight. As rife with wry humor as it is lacking in self-pity, this fast-paced chronicle of late-1970s adolescent anorexia is narrated with a light touch, and yet is chilling and poignant in its straightforward simplicity.” —Sarah Saffian, author of Ithaka: A Daughter’s Memoir of Being Found“Stick Figure stands out as a fresh, edgy take—not just on anorexia but on that perilous time in a girl’s life when she’s no longer a child but not quite an adult.” —Entertainment Weekly“Undeniably effective.” —Booklist“[An] authentic voice.” — Francisco Chronicle“Her descriptions of preteen vulnerability and self-consciousness ring true…her diary offers haunting evidence of what little progress we have made.” —Publishers Weekly“By turns earnest and funny, hopeful and tragic, eleven-year-old Lori is a latter-day Alice: She takes us through the distorted looking glass that’s held up to young girls and into the harrowing land of eating disorders. There is no other word for it: You will devour this book—and hopefully, keep right on eating.” —Peggy Orenstein, author of School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap
After happening upon the diary she kept when she was 11 years old, Gottlieb was moved to publish this chronicle of her struggle with anorexia nearly 20 years after she wrote it. In the late 1970s, she lived with her parents and brother in Beverly Hills, where Gottlieb's loneliness and concern about looking attractive to boys swiftly transformed into an obsession with dieting, although she had never been overweight. In her diary entries, she presents her father as a successful but emotionally withdrawn stockbroker, and her mother as a controlling airhead whose major concerns were her appearance and shopping. Gottlieb's parents became very alarmed, however, when their daughter, who believed that even smelling food would make her gain weight, kept refusing to eat. They took her to their family physician and then to a therapist who hospitalized her for several months when her condition continued to deteriorate. Though it is clear that Gottlieb, who is a regular contributor to Salon, has polished her childhood diary, her descriptions of preteen vulnerability and self-consciousness ring true--for example, when she recounts how, at lunchtime one day, her popularity skyrocketed because she could figure out a diet plan for every girl. In the context of the daunting (though unfootnoted) statistic Gottlieb cites, that "50% of fourth grade girls in the United States diet, because they think they're too fat," her diary offers haunting evidence of what little progress we have made. Agents, Jill Grinberg and Laurie Fox. First serial to YM; BOMC and QPB alternates; 3-city author tour; foreign rights sold in Germany, Finland and Portugal. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Before she was a Hollywood executive, Gottlieb was an anorexic teenager. This account of her "former self" has been optioned by Martin Scorsese's De Fina/Cappa Productions. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
"A smart, funny, compassionate journal of the author's bout with anorexia at age 11." -Entertainment Weekly"It reads like a novel...absolutely gripping." -Boston Globe"Compelling...Hopefully, young Gottlieb will stand as a patron saint for girls vulnerable to eating disorders and the adults who should be caring for them." -Booklist"Poignant...Gottlieb is dead-on about society's irrational attitudes towards women's bodies." -Washington Post Book World"Lori Gottlieb's approach is compassionate, and very, very funny. More than just a book about anorexia, Stick Figure is an entertaining and thoughtful coming-of-age story that deals with an almost universal theme-negotiating the minefields of early adolescence and living to tell the tale." -Martha Manning, author of Undercurrents"What happens when a young girl from Beverly Hills trips on the fallacies of family and friends, then gets saturated by society's worship of the too thin? She almost dies...Gottlieb tells all this with an earnest narration that is funny at times but always tragic. And although Lori steps deeper and deeper into her illness, there is no self-pity. The mood is simply: This is what happened to me." -Seattle Times"Lori Gottlieb's eleven-year-old self is a singular storyteller of unblinking candor and precocious insight. As rife with wry humor as it is lacking in self-pity, this fast-paced chronicle of late-1970s adolescent anorexia is narrated with a light touch, and yet is chilling and poignant in its straightforward simplicity." -Sarah Saffian, author of Ithaka: A Daughter's Memoir of Being Found"Stick Figure stands out as a fresh, edgy take-not just on anorexia but on that perilous time in a girl's life when she's no longer a child but not quite an adult." -Entertainment Weekly"Undeniably effective." -Booklist"[An] authentic voice." - Francisco Chronicle"Her descriptions of preteen vulnerability and self-consciousness ring true...her diary offers haunting evidence of what little progress we have made." -Publishers Weekly"By turns earnest and funny, hopeful and tragic, eleven-year-old Lori is a latter-day Alice: She takes us through the distorted looking glass that's held up to young girls and into the harrowing land of eating disorders. There is no other word for it: You will devour this book-and hopefully, keep right on eating." -Peggy Orenstein, author of School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap
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