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Ladyparts : a memoir

Copaken, Deborah (Author).

Breasts. Uterus. Cervix. Heart. Vagina. The source of life, right? Well, for writer and photographer Deborah Copaken, it turned out to be just the opposite--almost. Between escaping from an abusive marriage, facing down the challenge of single-parenthood, and attempting to find love again, getting her bearings after everything she knew fell to pieces proved more slippery than she ever could have anticipated. From a Fourth of July health scare that brings new meaning to the words rocket's red glare, to wearing a giant heart monitor while out on dates to try and mend a heart both literally and figuratively broken, Lady Parts is Copaken's irreverent inventory of the female body and all the ailments that can befall it. Copaken's Lady Parts mines for irony the breakdown of a body during a time of intense spiritual and psychological upheaval, and paints with both black humor and breathtaking candor the portrait of a woman in revolt. From bloodclots and breast exams, heart palpitations and heartbreaks, to the terror, loneliness, and empowerment of a woman fighting for her life, Copaken weaves her harrowing experiences together with insights from medical and historical research to show how many of these common health issues and disabilities merely amplify what women around the world confront on a daily basis: warped beauty standards, workplace sexism, worries about romantic partners, and mistrust of their own bodies.

Book  - 2021
818 Copak
1 copy / 0 on hold

Available Copies by Location

Location
Victoria Available
  • ISBN: 9781984855473
  • Physical Description print
    xviii, 460 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
  • Edition First edition.
  • Publisher [Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 2021.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note: Includes bibliographical references.

Additional Information

Syndetic Solutions - Summary for ISBN Number 9781984855473
Ladyparts : A Memoir
Ladyparts : A Memoir
by Copaken, Deborah
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Summary

Ladyparts : A Memoir


A frank, witty, and dazzlingly written memoir of one woman trying to keep it together while her body falls apart-from the "brilliant mind" (Michaela Coel, creator of I May Destroy You ) behind Shutterbabe "Eye-opening, breathtaking, terrifying, enraging, but most of all heartbreakingly funny-I recommend it for everyone I know."-Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE I'm crawling around on the bathroom floor, picking up pieces of myself. These pieces are not a metaphor. They are actual pieces. Twenty years after her iconic memoir Shutterbabe, Deborah Copaken is at her darkly comedic nadir- battered, broke, divorcing, dissected, and dying-literally-on sexism's battlefield as she scoops up what she believes to be her internal organs into a glass container before heading off to the hospital . . . in an UberPool. Ladyparts isCopaken'sirreverent inventory of both the female body and the body politic of womanhood in America, the story of one woman brought to her knees by the one-two-twelve punch of divorce, solo motherhood, healthcare Frogger, unaffordable childcare, shady landlords, her father's death, college tuitions, sexual harassment, corporate indifference, ageism, sexism, and plain old bad luck. Plus seven serious illnesses, one atop the other, which provide the book's narrative skeleton- vagina, uterus, breast, heart, cervix, brain, and lungs.Copakenbounces back from each bum body part, finds workarounds for every setback-she transforms her home into a commune to pay rent,sells her soul for health insurance,turns FBI informant when her sexual harassergets a presidential appointment-but in her slippery struggle to survive a steep plunge off the middle-class ladder, she is suddenly awoken to what it means to have no safety net. Side-splittingly funny one minute, a freak horror show the next, quintessentially Americanthroughout, Ladyparts is an era-definingmemoir.