Elizabeth Wurtzel has died.

Life The Guardian has a lengthy news story.  As does Above The Law.  NPR too.

As you can imagine I'm pretty crushed.  The short version of how I'm feeling now:

Fuck cancer.

Elizabeth Wurtzel was someone who loomed very large for me, in my life and writing.  Her fearless, raw openness and bravery in pushing the barrier in expressing the inexpressible, which often got her into trouble.

She was a constant reminder that it's ok to admire someone while not agreeing with everything they say, which continues to be especially true in this time of polarised and polarising opinions.

I'll take me a few days to some to terms with all of this, but since she has been such an important person to me, I thought I should write something, so here's my Elizabeth Wurtzel story.  Nothing earth shattering but an important moment for me.

For some unknown reason, I was one of the three hundred and twelve people she followed on Twitter.  She began sometime in the late oughts when the social network still felt like a nightclub with a few million punters, possibly when I included her in a #followfriday.

We chatted a few of times over the following couple of years and given how much of a fan I already was of her work, it was always a bit of a jolt when I saw her replying to one of my tweets, especially in 2009 when she asked, "Grew up watching Doctor Who on Saturday mornings with my dad, who happens to also be a Trekkie.  Is there some UK revival?" after I'd posted a link to a review.

Around that time Starbucks has announced their new instant Via coffee.  It had been in development for a while and as this short piece of The Seattle Time explains, its inventor Don Valencia died of cancer a few years before it was rolled out, "Via" being a play on his surname as a tribute.

Like I said, fuck cancer.

Anyway at some point during its launch, after seeing it mentioned on Starbucks Gossip, I lamented on Twitter that it was only going to be available in the US and wondered when and if it would migrate over here.

Within moments, I received a DM from Elizabeth Wurtzel saying that if I gave her my address, she'd see if they had any in the Starbucks near her work and she'd send me some.

I did and evidently she did, because a week later an envelope arrived from Boies Schiller Flexner, the law firm she worked for as, eventually, Director Of Special Projects.  Inside was a compliments slip and three or four Via sachets in the bottom (they were being sold singly at the time).

Which meant I was able to try Via a few months ahead of the rest of the UK.

I still have the envelope and slip somewhere, because when you receive correspondence from people you admire, that's just the sort of thing you do.

She probably would have thought it was a bit silly.

Like I said, this isn't anything earth shattering but it's this little kindness I thought of when I heard the news.

In the decade since I've diligently collected links to her writing which you might find useful.

There's not much more I can say now, so I'll leave the last word with her.  It's from a Reddit AMA she gave in 2013 in which she talks about how difficult it is to become a professional writer:

"Being a writer is extremely hard. This has always been true. It was true for Chaucer. It was true for Shakespeare, who wrote plays to please the queen. No one cares if you write. It has to matter to you so enormously much that you visit your ego upon the world and give it no choice except to care. I agree that this is harder now, not just because there are all these outlets that don't pay, but also because there are ALL THESE OUTLETS. Because of the Internet, there is too much content and not enough audience. It is so hard to distinguish oneself. Here is the trick, I think: You have to be brave as a writer. You have to write in a pure voice that is distinct and rare. It really is not hard. That does not require facility with words so much as it requires lack of fear. Of course, that is hard. Fear is the thing that gets in the way of everything: love, happiness, success.

"I happen to think there were many more opportunities twenty years ago to get a job as an editorial assistant at a magazine and write little articles until you could get assigned bigger pieces. But in terms of becoming an author of a book, the odds are as stacked against you or for you as ever. It is really difficult. But I think if you are sure this is what you must do, you need to be fearless and proceed. It really only works if it is a matter of no other choice."

Young and Depressed in America.

Books Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation is 25 years old and Anne Thériault has written for Long Reads about what the book has meant for her and why she thinks it was so successful and continues to be:

"What seemed most important to me about Wurtzel’s writing was that she had been messy, and she was willing to detail that mess without apology. Just: here is how I’ve behaved. She offers the reader no contextualizing, no explaining, no objective distance from the events described. I still can’t tell if Wurtzel did this intentionally or not — and, if it’s a device meant to draw readers deep into her own stream of consciousness, she doesn’t always wield it skilfully — but either way, it was a radical departure from how I’d seen women write about themselves. I’d never read a story about a woman engaging in such rambunctious self-destruction that didn’t turn into a morality tale; on the other hand, there was no shortage of stories about men being comparably messy. [link]"

Yes, exactly.  That's what struck me on reading the book, its blinding honesty and lack of fear in presenting the rawness of herself without caveat.  That continued into the sequel More Now Again, about the ritalin fuelled genesis of Bitch, the feminist polemic she wrote in between.  On neither occasion does she come across well, but it's the bravery of exploring her own failings which makes them intensely readable and relatable.

When I discovered the book sixteen years ago, my reaction was to write about it on here as though she'd been someone I'd actually spent time with, as though the book was a conversation we shared (I'd bought all three books at Music Zone in Manchester which explains the references to that city) (the science fiction writers would have course represent the Doctor Who novels I'd been reading in that period).  I mean it's fine as pseudo intellectual exercises go.  It's one of the few blog posts from back then which I actually remember writing.

But it fits within the style of this blog back in 2003, far more personal, when I felt more comfortable talking about myself.  As I've said since, as soon as someone you know talks about something they've read here, it's done.  It's much easier to be reveal yourself when you can't imagine the face of someone actually reacting to what they're reading.  That's another reason why Wurtzel's books seemed so incredible.  She talks about people who will inevitably read her words and not always in the best light.

Anyway, to celebrate this literary milestone and commemorate how things used to be, here's something I've never mentioned on the blog before.  Back in 2017, I wrote about my first kiss.  What I didn't include is that that has been my only kiss, that stupid, sloppy, drunken smacker lasting a couple of seconds from my post-uni days is the only time I've pressed lips with anyone.  Of course that implies a range of other logical revelations, but let's just stick to that one for starters, not that there's much else to add.  At least, not right now.

Thanks for Darren for sending me the article.  I bet you weren't expecting this.

Elizabeth Wurtzel has a new father.

People You've probably read this incredible piece already but I'm linking it here for posterity. Elizabeth Wurtzel writes for New York Magazine on discovering her father is actually Bob Adelman, legendary photographer:

"Life is just a shock to the system.

"It turns out that the man I have spent 50 years believing to be my father is not my father.Donald Wurtzel, 2001.

"My mother lied to me about who my father is. My father is Bob Adelman, the photographer, who most famously caught Martin Luther King Jr.MLK delivers “I Have a Dream,” August 28, 1963. in profile having a dream on the Lincoln Memorial. You know the shot. You know many of Bob’s pictures. When they say something is iconic, they just mean everyone knows it. Bob was early for history.

Elizabeth Wurtzel on the opioid crisis:
"If I had not been in a 72-hour hold the first time I tried, it would not have happened. Of course, it never works the first time unless you aren’t an addict. Relapse is part of quitting. Only the resilient-as-all-get-out get through. I know a lot of people who died because they could not go on without heroin and they did too much or the wrong stuff. That is how you die. Dope-sick people who are desperate do something that kills them. You have to keep trying." [Time]

Elizabeth Wurtzel on her cancer and lack of fear thereof:
"I have breast cancer as a result of the BRCA gene, so it was preventable. All Ashkenazi Jewish women should get tested for the BRCA mutation, we now know, because half the time there is no way to know that you have the gene, and one in forty Ashkenazi Jews carries it. At one time it bothered me that I have a disease I could have avoided through prophylactic mastectomy. I don’t feel that way anymore. I like the person I am with cancer and because of cancer. Yes, that thing happened. I evolved." [The Guardian]

Men, again.

Film Elizabeth Wurtzel on Weinstein. Blistering:

"Men who do this sort of thing think they are just being friendly. They are just asking the girl out who — so what? — happens to work for them.

Asking again and again and again.

Cornering her.

Pushing her against the wall.

Threatening her — of course not meaning it, because that would be totally wrong.

Over and over again. But, no, not seriously, of course.

We’re all grown-ups.

But asking again and again. And again.

Until it is unbearable and someone has to leave, usually her. No: always her.

She has to go."

Miramax, of course, distributed the Wurtzel disavowed adaptation of Prozac Nation, which I can barely bring myself to watch. Maybe some day.

Although that's not mentioned, Richard Brody has piece about how Weinstein was bad for films too especially his treatment of auteurs.

Molly Ringwald also mentions the treatment a British film which she was appearing in received, in a longer column about her treatment at the hands of various men on set:

"Thankfully, I wasn’t cajoled into a taxi, nor did I have to turn down giving or getting a massage. I was lucky. Or perhaps it was because, at that moment in time, I was the one with more power. “The English Patient,” Weinstein’s first Best Picture winner, was still a few years away. The worst I had to contend with was performing new pages that Harvey had someone else write, which were not in the script; my co-star, Robert Lindsay, and I had signed off to do a film adapted and directed by one person, and then were essentially asked to turn our backs on him and film scenes that were not what we had agreed to. We hadn’t even finished filming, and the movie was already being taken away from the director."

Elizabeth Wurtzel interviewed by Liz Phair.

Film A piece on the Interview Magazine website on the occasion of a reissue of Prozac Nation. This paragraph in particular resonated:

"I see sexism everywhere, and I think it has to do with that. I've begun to blame sexism for everything. I've become so overwhelmed by it that, even though I love Bob Dylan, I don't want to listen to Bob Dylan, because I don't want to listen to men anymore. I don't care what men have to say about anything. I only want to pay attention to what women do. I only want to read women. I'll tell you how intense my feelings about this are: You know The Handmaid's Tale, the show, which is feminist in its nature? Because men are behind it, I don't want to watch it. That is the extent to which I am so truly horrified by what is going on."

Increasingly I'm drawn to women's stories in film and female-led films because I've also felt like I've seen enough man stories already. But the other point about The Handmaid's Tale has also been a concern - the key creator of the series is male. But the gender of the writing and directorial staff is roughly fifty/fifty so to an extent I'm ok with that especially since the source material is from a female author.

Let's hope that the success of Wonder Woman will lead to more films which don't just have a female protagonist but also director and writers which is something even that film didn't accomplish.

Elizabeth Wurtzel on Girls.

TV For the Washington Post. She saw a lot of herself in there:

"I am scared of my 20s. That decade took me down. My Room 13 is being 25 again. I spent every day getting over the night before. I lived downtown in New York City, in every neighborhood south of 14th Street, because I moved all the time, as I ran rampant through life. I had boyfriends who broke lamps to make a point. I ordered in morning coffee at 2 in the afternoon. I did not understand a schedule. My heart had a black and blue mark on it all the time."

Elsewhere, here's Lena Dunham on the final episode. I thought initially it was a bit "These Are The Voyages" in that episode nine felt like the structural end of the series, but on reading this I can appreciate that having episode 9 as the climax isn't very Girls. Episode ten and that final shot it.  Marnie spin-off please?

Elizabeth Wurtzel on Bob Dylan.

Music Writing for The Guardian:

"I learned from Bob Dylan that, if you are good with words, you can invent whatever life you want. That is the power of writing. Great authors create worlds, with cityscapes and neighbourhoods and characters that they choose. I’ll be damned if you can’t become the person you render. Bob Dylan’s masterpiece is himself, all his work and all the people it has affected."

Elizabeth Wurtzel on Augusta.

Nature On how adopting an abandoned puppy changed her life:

"She was consuming. She wanted to do everything. I was afraid she was going to want a subscription to the ballet at Lincoln Center. She was busy. She wanted to walk all the time, and once we started, she did not want to stop.

"She made me cry. Early one morning, I broke down. Work with me, Augusta, I pleaded. She did not care. She wanted to walk more.

"I discovered dogwalkers and dog daycare. I made friends with other dog owners. We worked it out. I cannot believe we worked it out. It is because I love her so much."

I always wondered what it must be like to own a dog. I'm allergic to cat hair, so that's out, but dogs. But I don't think I have the temperament. I'm already too easily distracted.

Elizabeth Wurtzel on the BRCA mutation.

Health Something I had absolutely no idea about. From the NYT:

"The BRCA mutation entered the Jewish community in Poland some 500 years ago, and because the Jews of Eastern Europe lived in isolated communities, they incubated it among themselves. Entire families of women were wiped out by breast cancer, and no one knew why as they buried their dead.

"Even though the 14 million Jews of the world today have scattered and intermarried, the BRCA mutation still disproportionately affects Ashkenazi Jews."

Elizabeth Wurtzel in The Telegraph.

Books An interview:

It’s funny, I tell her, to hear the one time emblem of disaffected youth sounding quite so, well, optimistic. “Of course marriage is optimistic,” she shrugs, “because it’s the beginning of something. And maybe getting married for the first time at 47 is my real mistake – maybe I should be on my third or fourth marriage. But really what I can’t believe is that people get married before they’re 47. My husband is 35 and I can’t understand why he’s giving up on being single at such a young age. Single people have more fun, after all. They’re out all the time at bars and museums – they’re doing so much because they’re looking for love.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel marries.

People The New York Times reports on the courtship and marriage of Elizabeth Wurtzel:

They talked for a while, then parted ways until (James) Freed’s cousin, who was a fan of Ms. Wurtzel, grabbed him as he was leaving to say that Ms. Wurtzel was looking for him.

He returned, and they exchanged books and phone numbers. Mr. Freed, who works as the deputy photo editor for The Daily Mail Online, was more intrigued than intimidated. But then again, he had not read any of Ms. Wurtzel’s writing at the time. She, on the other hand, was more assured about an intuition that he may be good for her.

Congratulations.

Elizabeth Wurtzel on The Good Wife.

TV Writing for The Guardian for the first time since 2010, Wurtzel explains why it should be lauded just as much as Mad Men if not more so. Mild spoilers unless you've already worked out the Hogwarts like structure of the series (or indeed aren't at the beginning of season three like me):

"From the first episode, when Alicia was a first-year associate making her way at Lockhart-Gardner, I was rooting for her. I root for her when she is wrong and awful, which is all the time. Alicia is difficult and demanding and unfair – with herself and with everyone else – because she would rather be right than nice. The Good Wife invents a rare female character: Alicia is not interested in good intentions because they have nothing to do with the correct result, in fact they are the enemy of it."

Alicia's the focus of the piece but Kalinda's probably The Good Wife's secret weapon. Whenever a story is flagging sometimes, or the legal stuff is a bit thin and the writers clearly know it, they'll throw in a scene where Kalinda does something completely outrageous and we're back. Incidentally, the lift scene at the end of season 2 is one of the best pieces of television as a visual medium I think I've seen.  Onward into season 3.

Elizabeth Wurtzel on getting married.

People Oh, well, congratulations. Writing in The New York Times:

"I DID not expect to fall in love at 46, and I did not expect to plan a wedding at 47. Except that I always expect to be surprised.

I would love to say that I don’t know why I never got around to this until now, but that would be a big fat lie. I never got married because who would want to? I was the worst girlfriend ever. And yes, I am the crazy ex-girlfriend you hear about. I had no regard for time of day or time of year or time at all. Perhaps I just had no regard. It’s not like I called boyfriends at 2 a.m. because something was wrong: I did it because I liked to talk in the dark when there was nothing good to watch on TV anymore."

Prozac Nation at 20.

Books Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation turns twenty this year. For The Daily Beast, Nicolaus Mills offers this appreciation, which notes that those passages which some saw as its weakness were actually its strength:

"Anyone going through Prozac Nation can certainly find plenty of callow moments when Wurtzel does whine. Wurtzel’s mother gets mugged in New York, and Wurtzel is reluctant to leave Cambridge to be by her bedside. Wurtzel’s boyfriend goes home during Christmas vacation to be with his mother and sister, and Wurtzel, trying to avoid another breakdown, resents the attention he gives his family.

"But what reviewers who seize upon these moments as proof of Wurtzel’s fundamental callowness ignore is that in Prozac Nation she makes a point of deliberately parading her worst side. Her aim is to show her readers that her depression did not just make her unhappy. It often made her unfeeling and incapable of empathy."

Here's what happened when I read the book in 2003. I've since met someone who read that review and took it literally.

"I’m not competing with myself."

Books Elizabeth Wurtzel's spoken to Buzzfeed on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Prozac Nation. She says she's happier:

"I’ve calmed down. Looking back, I was engaged more in dramas than I was in relationships. I’ve spent a lot of my life being in it for the plot, and I don’t do that anymore. I’m satisfied. I’m not competing with myself. I accomplished things I wanted to do, so everything I do now is because I want to, not because I’m trying to prove something. And I think it’s a fundamental difference between men and women and feminism can’t solve this. Like, there are hardly any female billionaires out there because there’s a limited amount of money you can spend in your lifetime and there aren’t many female CEOs because there’s no pleasure in being a CEO. And women get that and women want to do interesting things. I think it shows women’s good sense that we’re less ambitious because a billion dollars is all ego, there’s nothing you can do with it. And good for women for saying, “Who needs that?” What I wanted is an interesting life and what I’ve had is an interesting life."

Elizabeth Wurtzel's recaps of The Bachelor.

TV  As I've mentioned before, Elizabeth Wurtzel's been providing episode recaps for the latest US series of The Bachelor for Nerve.com and in a way which is both entertaining, funny, clever and most importantly short.  But Nerve's website doesn't seem to have author profiles so keeping up with them has been a bit difficult, right up to this week's finale.  So as a public service here are the columns I can find linked in broadcast order.

January 6, 2014
Countdown to Juan Pablo

January 14, 2014
Fake Pregnancies, Fake Snow, Real Tears

January 21, 2014
The Prettiest Girls In The Room, All in a Room Together

January 28, 2014
A Victory for Feminism

February 4, 2014
All the Promises Will Be Broken

February 11, 2014
Armchair Anthropologists

February 25, 2014
Emotional Blather Galore

February 26, 2014
The Fantasy Suite and The Opposite of Love

March 6, 2014
The Women Tell All

March 11, 2014
The Final Rose

The official website has a more standard episode guide.

Elizabeth Wurtzel on The Bachelor US. On a weekly basis.

TV Nerve has asked Elizabeth Wurtzel to provide weekly reviews for this season of The Bachelor. Yes, indeed. Well done all:

"Here is the truth, and the answer to Shakespeare's question: There is a lot in a name. If your parents want your life to be substantial, they give you a serious name, like mine or anything else biblical or Anglo-Saxon. And if your parents are hoping you will someday have plump silicone breast implants, that you will someday be a personal trainer, that if it all works out you will someday be a contestant on The Bachelor, and who knows what else they hope for, then they name you Christy or Kelly, or anything that ends in an "i." That's just the way it goes. I'm sure there is a fine neurosurgeon somewhere named Kyli –but I'm not completely sure. In the mean time, here is how bachelorette Christy describes her favorite type of dancing: "Is drunk dancing a type?" They say blondes have more fun, and I bet they do. "

Elizabeth Wurtzel on Lou Reed.

Film The Scandinavian dvd version my completist gene bought (before it turned up on Netflix) sits there looking at me, or rather Christina Ricci's nude body does, but my loyalty to Elizabeth Wurtzel stops me from watching it. And yet ...

"... he performed “Perfect Day” in the film version of my book Prozac Nation, which was not necessarily the best use of his time. Oh, well. It made sense as a plot turn in the movie, because the first thing I ever wrote for The Harvard Crimson, in October of my freshman year, was a record review of a career retrospective of his, and that essay won me the 1985 Rolling Stone College Journalism Award. From there I started writing music journalism for the ultimate magazine to write for at the time. So I suppose I owe him one and then some."

No, actually, nothing short of Elizabeth Wurtzel herself telling me to watch the Prozac Nation film would make me watch the Prozac Nation film. And yet...