This book was soooooooo flipping good, it’s an autobiographical novel that documents Eileen’s life, but not in chronological order, so one minute you’re with Eileen in their thirties in Maine mixing paint and throwing punches at police officers, then you’re with Eileen having an affair with a married woman who unexpectedly pisses in her mouth (a particularly visceral moment I genuinely started dry heaving in my room imagining being in this situation with absolutely 0 warning) but there’s so much more, there’s going to Woodstock and diet pills and drugs and sex and soooo much booze and suddenly we’re at a random kids birthday party and Eileen is deeply in love with someone new in every chapter.
“I myself was a good natured cloud who would float by and steal things, and wait for praise. I could never understand why life just didn’t feel substantial enough.”
Chelsea Girls by eileen Myles
I mean it’s 70s and 80s New York City, how can you not be obsessed? There’s really funny moments but also really poignant parts too, small things like Eileen wrote this book in the 90s and they wonder if this gay guy who they worked with in 1973 who was like 30 at the time, John, is still alive, and at first it’s like why wouldn’t he be??? But then you think about the reality of being gay at that time, when AIDS was killing so many people and even though it’s such a fleeting line, “I wonder if John is alive.” It does make you wonder, did John make it to middle age?
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