Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulima

Hornbacher, Marya

Biographies & Memoirs

Harper

A 'retired career anorexic' examines herself and her, and our, culture in a masterpiece of confessional literature. At the age of four Marya Hornbacher looked in a mirror and decided she was fat. At nine, she was bulimic. At twelve, she was anorexic. By the time she was eighteen, she'd been hospitalized five times, once in the loony bin. Her doctors and her parents had given up on her; they were watching her die. But Marya decided to live. Four years on, now 22, here is her harrowing tale, powerfully told in a virtuoso mix of memoir, cultural criticism and psychological examination. Here is the amazingly articulate fury of a clever woman made stupid by her culture, who threw away her teenage years in a continuous cycle of bingeing and vomiting or just plain starvation. The first book to explore, from the inside, the intimate relationship between eating disorders and 1990s culture's historically unprecedented obsession with body, diet and gender; not a testimony to a miracle cure, but the story of one woman's travels to the darker side of reality, and her decision to find her way back, on her own terms. 'Hornbacher is articulate, clever, and has all the persuasive zeal of a convert, furious at the pressures that made her what she was. Paradoxically, her painful journey is also gripping and!dare one say it!.entertaining in a way that no fiction could ever be. A compulsive read.' Publishing News; 'A gritty unflinching look at eating disorders written from the raw disintegrated centre of young pain with stark candour and power.' New York Times / The slimming industry is worth GBP1billion in GB alone / The UK has 3.5 million anorexics and bulimics

Wasted

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Flamingo

This is the first novel by the author of Wasted, A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia. "All the seasons here in the north move toward their own end, except winter, which moves toward its center and sits there to see how long you can take it." At the center of winter, in Motley Minnesota, Arnold Schiller gives in to the oppressive season that reign outside and also to his inner demons--he commits suicide, leaving a devastated family in his wake. Clair Schiller, wife and mother, takes shelter from the emotional storm with her husband's parents but must ultimately emerge from her grief and help her two young children to recover. Narrated alternately by Claire, Katie, and Esau, this powerful and passionate novel explores the ways in which both children and adults experience tragic events, discover solace and hope in one another, and survive. The story of three people, who find their way out of the center of winter, this novel will leave you breathless, tearful, and ultimately inspired.

CENTRE OF WINTER

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Harper-perennial

Madness: A Bipolar Life

Precociously intelligent, imaginative, energetic and ambitious, Marya Hornbacher grew up in a comfortable middle-class American home. At the age of five, she returned from a ballet class one day, put on an enormous sweater, curled up on her bed and cried -- because she thought she was fat. By age nine, she was secretly bulimic, throwing up at home after school while watching The Brady Bunch reruns on television and munching Fritos. She added anorexia to her repertoire a few years later and took great pride in her ability to starve.
Why would a talented young girl go through the looking glass and step into a netherworld where up is down and food is greed, where death is honor and flesh is weak? Why enter into a love affair with hunger, drugs, sex and death? Marya Hornbacher sustained both anorexia and bulimia through five lengthy hospitalizations, endless therapy, the loss of family, friends, jobs and, ultimately, any sense of what it meant to be "normal." In this vivid, emotionally wrenching memoir, she re-creates the experience and illuminates the tangle of personal, family and cultural causes that underlie eating disorders.
Hornbacher's story gathers intensity with each passing year. By the time she is in college and working for a news service in Washington, DC, she is in the grip of a such a horrifying bout with anorexia that it will forever put to rest the romance of wasting away. Down to 52 pounds and counting, Hornbacher's body becomes a battlefield: the death instinct with the drive to live, mind and body locked in mortal combat.
Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to the darker side of reality, and her decision to find her way back -- on her own terms. A landmark book from a 23-year-old writer of virtuoso prose, Wasted takes us inside the experience of anorexia and bulimia in a way that no one else has ever done.

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Community & Culture

At the center of winter, in Motley, Minnesota, Arnold Schiller gives in to the oppressive season that reigns outside and also to his own inner demons -- he commits suicide, leaving a devastated family in his wake.
Claire Schiller, wife and mother, takes shelter from the emotional storm with her husband's parents but must ultimately emerge from her grief and help her two young children to recover. Esau, her oldest, is haunted by the same darkness that plagued his father. At twelve years old, he has already been in and out of state psychiatric hospitals, and now, with the help of his mother and sister, he must overcome the forces that drive him deep into himself. But as the youngest, perhaps it is Katie who carries the heaviest burden. A precocious six-year-old who desperately wants to help her mother hold the family together, she will have to come to terms with the memory of her father, who was at once loving and cruel.
Narrated alternately by Claire, Katie, and Esau, this powerful and passionate novel explores the ways in which both children and adults experience tragic events, discover solace and hope in one another, and survive. The Center of Winter finds humor in unlikely places and evokes the north -- its people and landscape -- with warmth, sensitivity, and insight. The story of three people who, against all odds, find their way out of the center of winter, Marya Hornbacher's debut novel will leave you breathless, tearful, and ultimately inspired.

The Center of Winter: A Novel

United States

Why would a talented young woman enter into a torrid affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Through five lengthy hospital stays, endless therapy, and the loss of family, friends, jobs, and all sense of what it means to be "normal," Marya Hornbacher lovingly embraced her anorexia and bulimia -- until a particularly horrifying bout with the disease in college put the romance of wasting away to rest forever. A vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching memoir, Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to reality's darker side -- and her decision to find her way back on her own terms.

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.)

The luminous first novel by Marya Hornbacher, the acclaimed author of Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, is a moving and passionate story of a death from despair - and a stricken family's passage through grief toward the hope, solace, and understanding that waits for them somewhere beyond the center of winter.

Dramas & Plays

A vivid, heartbreaking autobiography shares one young woman's lifelong battle with bulimia and anorexia, chronicling her secret life of binging and purging, obsession with food and body image, substance abuse, and sex, as well as her harrowing battle with eating disorders. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

WASTED : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia [ 1st ]

HarperCollins, Publishers

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Books by Hornbacher, Marya

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hornbacher, Marya. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulima

Wasted

CENTRE OF WINTER

Madness: A Bipolar Life

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

The Center of Winter: A Novel

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.)

The Center of Winter: A Novel

Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

WASTED : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia [ 1st ]