Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America

by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Overview

Elizabeth Wurtzel's New York Times best-selling memoir, with a new afterword

"Sparkling, luminescent prose . . . A powerful portrait of one girl's journey through the purgatory of depression and back." —New York Times

"A book that became a cultural touchstone." —New Yorker

Elizabeth Wurtzel writes with her finger on the faint pulse of an overdiagnosed generation whose ruling icons are Kurt Cobain, Xanax, and pierced tongues. Her famous memoir of her bouts with depression and skirmishes with drugs, Prozac Nation is a witty and sharp account of the psychopharmacology of an era for readers of Girl, Interrupted and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544960091
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	06/06/2017
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	61,269
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.20(d)
Lexile:	1200L (what's this?)

About the Author

ELIZABETH WURTZEL (1967-2020) was the author of best-selling books including Prozac Nation,Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, and More, Now, Again. A Harvard and Yale Law School graduate, her work appeared in such publications as The New Yorker,New York, the Guardian, and the Oxford American. 

Table of Contents

Prologue: I Hate Myself and I Want to Die
1. Full of Promise
2. Secret Life
3. Love Kills
4. Broken
5. Black Wave
6. Happy Pills
7. Drinking in Dallas
8. Space, Time, and Motion
9. Down Deep
10. Blank Girl
11. Good Morning Headache
12. The Accidental Blowjob
13. Woke Up This Morning Afraid I Was Gonna Live
14. Think of Pretty Things
Epilogue: Prozac Nation
Afterword (1995)
Acknowledgments

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Wrenching and comical, self-indulgent and self-aware, Prozac Nation possesses the raw candor of Joan Didion's essays, the irritating emotional exhibitionism of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and the wry, dark humor of a Bob Dylan song."—The New York Times

"Wurtzel is a very entertaining nut case. Reading this book is like being locked up with her, covering your ears or laughing out loud, depending on your perspective. Prozac Nation gives a view of every aspect of depression: the self-pity, the courage, the flashes of insight, the despair, and the endless, very moving struggle, simply, to live." —Jeffrey Eugenides

"[Wurtzel] is smart, she is funny...she is thoughtful and...she is very, very brave. Wurtzel portrays, from the inside out, an emotional life perpetually spent outrunning the relentless pursuit of what she describes as a black wave, often sacrificing her likability on the altar of her truth."—Vanity Fair

"Sylvia Plath with the ego of Madonna." —The New York Times Book Review

"The saddest, funniest, and ultimately, most triumphant book about youthful depression I've come across. It reads like a mixture of J.D. Salinger and Sylvia Plath, with some Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen thrown in for good measure...[Wurtzel] is one canny and entertaining observer of her generation: if you've been wondering why Kurt Cobain meant what he did—what it feels like to be young, gifted, and black of spirit—this book is the CD, tape, video, and literary answer all in one."—Daphne Merkin, author of Enchantment

"The Courtney Love of letters... You can disagree with Wurtzel, but at least she always has a passionate point of view." —Entertainment Weekly

"... The preposterous energy of a great, drunken tantrum, and a voluptuous, sprawling style, with lots of good, zinging jokes." —Mary Gaitskill

Editorial Reviews

"Wrenching and comical, self-indulgent and self-aware, Prozac Nation possesses the raw candor of Joan Didion's essays, the irritating emotional exhibitionism of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and the wry, dark humor of a Bob Dylan song."—The New York Times

"[Wurtzel] is smart, she is funny...she is thoughtful and...she is very, very brave. Wurtzel portrays, from the inside out, an emotional life perpetually spent outrunning the relentless pursuit of what she describes as a black wave, often sacrificing her likability on the altar of her truth."—Vanity Fair

"A very important book, particularly to the countless number of people who aren't sure what's wrong with them but are suffering from the negative thinking, erratic behavior, and dark moods associated with clinical depression. A powerful self-portrait...well worth reading"—San Francisco Bay Guardian

"The saddest, funniest, and ultimately, most triumphant book about youthful depression I've come across. It reads like a mixture of J.D. Salinger and Sylvia Plath, with some Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen thrown in for good measure...[Wurtzel] is one canny and entertaining observer of her generation: if you've been wondering why Kurt Cobain meant what he did—what it feels like to be young, gifted, and black of spirit—this book is the CD, tape, video, and literary answer all in one."—Daphne Merkin, author of Enchantment

"A very good book, maybe even an important one, and the pain and despair Wurtzel describes are as real as they are excruciatingly rendered."—Mademoiselle

From the Publisher