Atta Girl!: A Memoir - Softcover

Genie Zeigler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1890932272 ISBN 13: 9781890932275

Publisher: Sherman Asher Publishing, 2005

Synopsis

The authentic, funny and entertaining voice of an adolescent Jewish girl growing up in the 1950's--a decade that demanded restraint and repression in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Appealing to adults, especially baby boomers, but also to young adult audiences, Atta Girl! asks all the questions, explains all the thoughts, and wonders all the wonder of an adolescent stuck in her world. Her unrestrained words are a breath of fresh air extending back in time and towards the future.

About this title

About the Author

Genie Zeiger was born and raised in NYC, where she earned a BA, an MEd and an MFA. A writer and former psychotherapist, she gives readings and workshops on death and dying. Her poems and essays have appeared in The NYT Book Review, Tikkun, and many other publications.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the Book: I don’t understand what God is. I don’t understand what life is. What kind of a life is this for a kid’ I am so full of questions, I think I ‘m going to burst. What can I do with them, where will they go’ That’s what I’m thinking today as I sit in our little, little living room. My mother is making supper, as usual. The parakeet is swinging on his perch, as usual. My father is at work, as usual, and my sister, Susie, I don’t know what she’s doing, and I don’t care so long as she isn’t bothering me. I’m bored, as usual, and I began wondering if God made the world because He was bored too. I have so many thoughts, and no one to tell them to; I have so many problems, and no one to discuss them with. Somehow I know no one around here really wants to know what I’m thinking. I guess that’s just the way life is here, in Queens, New York. Well, one problem I'm facing is finding this boy. I mean Junior High School 141 is okay, but most of the kids are, well, kind of simple and don't really understand people like me who love poetry, want to understand the nature of the universe, and cannot live on bread alone. I did like Michael Shulman, our eyes met between seven and ten times a day in the seventh grade and that was promising because the eyes, they say, are the mirrors of the soul, but what happened was that when I finally got to talk to him, because we literally bumped into each other outside Mr. Stein's history class, all he could say was Hi and the look in his eyes close up was pretty disappointing. Life is not a bed of roses, my mother said when she saw me after school that day. I must have looked disappointed. Even though my mother is always closing and opening and dusting the blinds, she is not dumb I know, I said sighing sadly. At least I don’t feel really awful because of Michael Shulman, like Holden Caulfied did because of the whole world, but I was a bit depressed after all that promising eye contact. Maybe love is really blind, but if it is, I want it to blind me again and again, or have it take me into the fabulous forest where a tall, dark and handsome hunter, someone resembling Tony Perkins, will pull me gently into his arms.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sherman Asher Publishing
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1890932272
• ISBN 13: 9781890932275
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 136