Word: wurtzel
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That's Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America, A Memoir in a nutshell--a better place for it, in fact, than in the bookstores or on your shelf. Marketed as an object lesson in depression among the young, privileged, and talented, this book by '89 grad Elizabeth Wurtzel is more useful as an object lesson in how much the New York publishing industry sucks. How did this chick get a book contract in the first place? Why was she allowed to write such crap? (For example: "When I was with Abel, I felt like ice cream in a bowl...
Although the title suggests that the book is a sociological study of a culture of depression among America's non-slacker youth, it is simply the tedious and poorly written story of Wurtzel's melodramatic life, warts and all (actually, all warts). At one point she tells us that her mouth has become tired and chapped from giving too many blow jobs; we learn all about her dysfunctional family; and we hear about her Bacchanalian exploits in the Adams House of yore. The book is written as a straight narrative, interspersed with italicized, stream-of-consciousness peeks into Wurtzel...
...Prozac Nation's press packet we encounter the following description of the author: "Witty, intelligent, and hip (nose ring, tatoo [sic]), Elizabeth Wurtzel is definitely not a Gen-X slacker." Beyond the silly assertion of nose rings and tattoos as indexes of hipness, this statement reveals what is meant as the book's selling point: that it's not just losers without jobs who are depressed, that the world is such a tough place that it would depress anyone, even a cool Harvard student. Hey, I buy it. I've been depressed too, and with many of the same symptoms...
...That Wurtzel went to a good school and hung out with the artsy crowd, the fact that she's hip to what's up, is everywhere evident. There can be no mistaking her for one of those boring depressed people who sit in their rooms with no friends--she and her roommate were known as the Ecstasy Girls, and she seduced her friends' boyfriends just for the fun of it. Wurtzel exhibited, even played up, her depression and dissolution at get-togethers, classes, and work, and got lots of attention for it. "So here I am, lying nearly naked...
...networks aren't happy. If the missing viewers can't be found, they stand to lose hundreds of millions in ad revenue. Alan Wurtzel, ABC's research chief, says, "Just at the time we need more precision, we have a methodology that seems to be providing more volatility...