Two talented women will be in town tonight to discuss their recent literary endeavors.
Koren Zailckas, author of Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood will be reading and leading a discussion tonight at McNally Jackson Books alongside author Hephzibah Anderson, author of Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year Without Sex. The reading will start at 7 p.m.
Smashed, which came out about four years ago when Zailckas was twenty-three, was Zailckas first book, and, notably, also a bestseller. Pretty impressive. But it makes too much sense that this book would be written by a twenty-three year old straight out of college. If you haven’t read Smashed, it is exactly what its title claims it to be: a memoir of “a drunken girlhood.” Zailckas leads her readers through her first experiences drinking, her days spent intoxicated while trying to keep up with school and the drunken (and unrecalled) loss of her virginity. While Smashed tends to be depressing and hopeless at times, Zailckas perseveres with a shining outlook on the resilience of female strength which makes the book worth reading.
Hephzibah Anderson will be reading from her new book Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year Without Sex – written after Chastened: No more Sex in the City, two books I am super stoked to read. Chastened is the first hand account of a woman’s decision to go a year without sex. From a statement by Anderson –
So why did I give up penetrative sex? Apart from giving myself something to write about, that is. The simple answer is that I’d reached my 30s and had sex with the creme de la creme of London and New York literary society but had never managed to experience the idealised Romantic Love of a Jane Austen heroine.
Wait, isn’t sex part of idealized, romantic love? Either way, I am still excited to see what Anderson has to say about her experience… so be sure to check out the discussion, tonight at McNally Jackson Books, downtown. 52 Prince St. between Lafayette and Mulberry sts. FREE.
