Vertigo: A Memoir

by DeSalvo, Louise

• ISBN13: 9781558613959
• ISBN10: 1558613951
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-08-01
• Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist

Summary

In her no-holds-barred family memoir, controversial scholar-critic Louise DeSalvo breaks the traditional silence around life for an Italian American girl coming of age in working-class Hoboken, New Jersey. Upon first publication, DeSalvo's memoira__which sifts through painful memories of childhood incest, a sister's suicide, a mother's psychotic depression, and a father's violent ragea__enjoyed wide acclaim as an instant classic of the genre, written in "one of the most refreshing feminist voices around."-San Francisco Chronicle Marketing Plans: East Coast readings Extensively promoted with new anthology Taste This: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Identity Louise DeSalvo is professor of English at Hunter College. She has published thirteen books, including the acclaimed Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work.

Author Biography

Louise DeSalvo is the award-winning author of thirteen books. She is professor of English at Hunter College, City University of New York

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
Edvige Giunta
Prologue	xxxi
Fixing Things	1	(12)
My Sister's Suicide	13	(25)
Combat Zones	38	(28)
Finding My Way	66	(21)
Safe Houses	87	(29)
Colored Paper	116	(14)
Spin the Bottle	130	(15)
Boy Crazy	145	(16)
Vertigo	161	(28)
The Still Center of the Turning Wheel	189	(11)
Anorexia	200	(19)
A Portrait of the Puttana as a Woman in Midlife	219	(23)
Personal Effects	242