Overview

"The vibrant, funny, and heartwarming story of an outcast who becomes an odd man in If you have ever felt like a misfit in school or been paralyzed by your family's imposing expectations, if you have ever obsessed about your appearance or panicked about choosing a career path, if you have ever wondered if every single thing to which your body is exposed, from egg yolks to X-rays, might harm you, then you may be surprised to find a kindred spirit in ""The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt."" Growing up in sunny La Jolla, California, Jon-Jon Goulian was a hyperneurotic kid who felt out of place wherever he turned, and who, in his own words, was forever on the verge of ""caving in beneath the pressures of modern life."" From his fear of competition to his fear of pimples, from his fear of sex to his fear of saturated fat, the range and depth of Jon-Jon's phobias were seemingly boundless. With his two older brothers providing a sterling example he believed he could never live up to, and his stern grandfather, the political philosopher Sidney Hook, continually calling him to account for his intellectual failure, Jon-Jon, feeling pressed against the wall, wracked with despair, and dizzy with insecurity, instinctively resorted, for reasons that became clear to him only many years later, to a most ingenious scheme for keeping conventional expectations at bay: women's clothing! Ingenious, perhaps, but woefully ineffective, as Jon-Jon discovers, again and again, that behind his skirt, leggings, halter top, and high heels, he's still as wildly neurotic, and as wracked with anxiety, as he's always been. In this hilarious and heartfelt memoir, Jon-Jon Goulian's witty and exuberant voice shines through, as he comes to terms with what it means to truly be yourself."

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9781400068111

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Reviews

<p> For anyone who's ever felt like a no one in a world that demands we all be a someone, here it is: the psychedelically neurotic account, painfully brave and punishingly funny, of one human being's long struggle to make his outsides match his unclassifiable insides. --Walter Kirn, author of Lost in the Meritocracy <br> I am at a loss to imagine even one person who won't relate to The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt. Never have I read a fish-out-of-water story that had me so instantly and irrevocably enamored with the fish. --Sloane Crosley, author of How Did You Get This Number <br> I read this book in a single, thrilling sitting. It's beautifully written, extremely moving, and, most important, funny as hell! --Simon Rich, author of Elliot Allagash <br> It's hard to imagine anyone not loving this book, but everyone who's ever felt like a freak will find it especially cheering, affirming, heartrending, and hilarious. --Emily Gould, author of And the Heart Says Whate

<p> For anyone who's ever felt like no one in a world that demands we all be someone, here it is: the psychedelically neurotic account, painfully brave and punishingly funny, of one human being's long struggle to make his outsides match his unclassifiable insides. <br>--Walter Kirn, author of Lost in the Meritocracy <br> Never have I read a fish-out-of-water story that had me so instantly and irrevocably enamored with the fish. <br>--Sloane Crosley, author of How Did You Get This Number <br> This is a book that will fill you with laughter, pity, identification, and admiration; it might also show you how to be a man. If Jon-Jon Goulian did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent him. <br>--Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision <br> It's hard to imagine anyone not loving this book, but everyone who's ever felt like a freak will find it especially cheering, affirming, heartrending, and hilarious. <br>--Emily Gould, author of And the Heart Says Whatever <br>

For anyone who's ever felt like no one in a world that demands we all be someone, here it is: the psychedelically neurotic account, painfully brave and punishingly funny, of one human being's long struggle to make his outsides match his unclassifiable insides. Reading it is like spying on Goulian's soul -- a dirty little privilege. @lt;br@gt;--Walter Kirn, author of Up in the Air and Lost in the Meritocracy@lt;br@gt;@lt;br@gt; You can't read this book without falling a little bit in love with Jon-Jon Goulian. Suddenly, at the age of 40, after not having published a word his whole life, he gives us one of the funniest, saddest, and most exquisitely crafted books about a dysfunctional neurotic ever written. Alexander Portnoy meets Ignatius O'Reilly comes to mind, but skinnier, weirder, prettier, smarter, and more compassionate. And real. @lt;br@gt;--Katie Roiphe, author of Uncommon Arrangements@lt;br@gt;@lt;br@gt; Jon-Jon Goulian's journey from strange young man to strange older man is

Author Information

"Jon-Jon Goulian was born in 1968 and grew up in La Jolla, California. After attending Columbia College and NYU Law School, he worked as a law clerk for a federal judge in North Carolina, and then as an assistant to Robert Silvers of ""The New York Review of Books."" He now lives, by himself, in South Wardsboro, Vermont, where he spends most of his time gardening. ""The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt"" is his first book."

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