ERIN KHAR reads from her debut memoir STRUNG OUT (Park Row Books)
Growing up in Los Angeles as the only child of divorced parents, Erin
Khar, often consumed with loneliness, looked for an escape from the
pervasive belief that she wasn't enough—not enough to keep her
parents together or her mother from depression—and yet, she never
shared with anyone this private sadness. Instead, she hid behind the
façade of a perfect childhood filled with good grades, a popular
group of friends, and horseback riding. By the time she was thirteen,
the act becoming too difficult to keep up, and she started
experimenting with her grandmother's expired valium, quickly followed
by heroin. The drug allowed her to feel the calm she was missing from
her life and suppress all the heavy feelings she couldn't understand.
Heroin, while keeping her from other forms of self-harm, became the
addiction that destroyed her. Advance Praise for : "This is a brutally
honest and yet tender look inside opioid addiction. Khar pulls aside
the mask of an addict, and neither self-pitying or blaming, delves
deep into the personal, social and physical reasons for addiction."—
Rene Denfeld, author of The Child Finder and The Butterfly Girl "I
love Erin Khar's work with my whole heart and body. The way she uses
her own life's struggles, her gift of language, her impossibly large
sense of empathy and compassion, to make you feel less alone, is a
rare thing in this world. You don't want to put this book down as if
it is a piece of your own heart, and my guess is that it will become
just that."—Jennifer Pastiloff, author of "I love Erin's unusual use
of language. My air was caught in my throat a little bit and I knew I
was in the company of a writer who is willing to take risks, who knows
what it is like to NEED to take risks to get the story right. That
makes what she is doing ART."—Lidia Yuknavitch, author of "Erin is a
hauntingly beautiful writer with the kind of story you think has
nothing to do with you but has everything to do with you. She
transcends her specifics and speaks to anyone who has ever fought hard
to stay in the game of being a human being. She is a true
inspiration."—Kimberlee Auerbach Berlin, author of Categories:
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04/03/2020 Last update