Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood - Softcover

Traig, General Jennifer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 031601074X ISBN 13: 9780316010740

Publisher: Back Bay Books, 2006

Synopsis

Jennifer Traig's memoir Devil in the Details paints a portrait of a well-meaning Jewish girl and her good-natured parents, and takes a very funny, very sharp look back at growing up with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Recalling the agony of growing up an obsessive-compulsive religious fanatic, Traig fearlessly confesses the most peculiar behavior like tirelessly scrubbing her hands for a full half hour before dinner, feeding her stuffed animals before herself, and washing everything she owned because she thought it was contaminated by pork fumes. Jennifer's childhood mania was the result of her then undiagnosed OCD joining forces with her Hebrew studies-what psychiatrists call scrupulosity.
While preparing for her bat mitzvah, she was introduced to an entire set of arcane laws and quickly made it her mission to follow them perfectly. Her parents nipped her religious obsession in the bud early on, but as her teen years went by, her natural tendency toward the extreme led her down different paths of adolescent agony and mortification.
Years later, Jennifer remembers these scenes with candor and humor. In the bestselling tradition of Running with Scissors and A Girl Named Zippy, Jennifer Traig tells an unforgettable story of youthful obsession.

About this title

About the Author:

Jennifer Traig is the author of a series of young adult books and some humour titles. She has a PhD in Literature.

From AudioFile:

Jennifer Traig is an obsessive-compulsive with a religious bent. Traig's adolescence is complicated by this debilitating disorder. She bathes according to Old Testament rules (obsessively or not at all, depending on the day), prays fervently, and washes all her possessions and her hands whenever they get contaminated (i.e., constantly). Melinda Wade delivers an excellent performance that conveys both the eminent reasonableness of this behavior in the author's mind and its continual irritation to everyone around her. Wade's voice is almost a whine, a fitting tone for Traig's neuroses. Well done, but not to be listened to in long stretches. A.B. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 031601074X
• ISBN 13: 9780316010740
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272