Word: essayed
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Fittingly, the opening pieces serve as an introduction to Harrison--her past, beliefs and prejudices. She writes eloquently and wittily about her difficult past. In one essay, she recounts her experiences as a seven year old" precocious little mouthpiece for the apocalypse" who preached door-to-door on behalf of her mother, a Jehovah's Witness. We read about her early alienation from the Italian American suburb of Bensonhurst in which she grew up; her defection from its provincialism to feminism and bohemianism; her marriage and divorce...
...essay on Nadia Comeneci is more devastating. In a series of depressing interviews, the Rumanian gymnast bosses waiters at restaurants, lies to Harrison about her collaboration with the murderous dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and periodically leaves the table to vomit up the large quantities of food she stuffs into her mouth...
...this complex piece is not simply judgemental; it is mournful. Harrison never loses sight of the twisted nature of the government under which Comeneci grew up and the unnatural strains placed on the teenage girl who was also a world-class athlete. The essay is a terrifying portrait of a weak person in bad circumstances, a "casualty...
...speaks honestly and movingly of a hometown that was alternately embracing and terrifying. It has the tone of a leave-taking; with this critical essay Harrison realizes she is publicly, officially severing herself from the community she grew up in. It is a brave and difficult fight against the powerful "will to silence...
...ESSAY...