Chelsea Girls: A Novel

Written by Eileen Myles

Narrated by Eileen Myles

In this breathtakingly inventive autobiographical novel, Eileen Myles transforms life into a work of art. Told in her audacious voice, made vivid and immediate in her lyrical language, Chelsea Girls cobbles together memories of Myles's 1960s Catholic upbringing with an alcoholic father, her volatile adolescence, her unabashed "lesbianity," and her riotous pursuit of survival as a poet in 1970s New York.
Suffused with alcohol, drugs, and sex; evocative in its depictions of the hardscrabble realities of a young artist's life; and poignant with stories of love, humor, and discovery, Chelsea Girls is a funny, cool, and intimate account of a writer's education, and a modern chronicle of how a young female writer shrugged off the chains of a rigid cultural identity meant to define her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: May 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781515976004

Eileen Myles

Eileen Myles (they/them, b. 1949) is a poet, novelist, and art journalist whose practice of vernacular first-person writing has made them one of the most recognized writers of their generation. Pathetic Literature, which they edited, came out in fall 2022. a “Working Life,” their newest collection of poems, is out now. They live in New York and Marfa, TX.

Reviews for Chelsea Girls

[Mike Wick · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

EPIC TARGETS POPPING UP AT THE BIG RABBIT CONCESSION NOW Tough as nails carnival crowd fails to intimidate this author. She Shepard's us directly to the heart of the Midway and proceeds to win a Big Rabbit for us all . I love her asides as she captures beauty in nanoscapes of absurdity! Speaks to the multitude of 12-Steppers trapped in a special limbo.

[spacechick365 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The story of Eileen Myles is very intriguing and if read in paperback would probably be much better. I listened to the book as an audio book. The narrator was Eileen herself. Of the audio books I have listened to, I don't think she is the best narrator. Her story would have been more captivating with a different person reading and I wonder if part of that was she was too close to her own book. The story itself was interesting and there were parts that the stories kept me wanting more details. Overall, if you want an interesting story, this would do the trick.

[padmajoy-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book had some beautiful lines in it. I admire Eileen Miles' poetry but she is not a novelist/memoirist. There was no story line and no theme that I could find. The book is a series of vignettes of Eileen's life and to me they were all the same; about getting high, falling in love and breaking up with lovers.I do not think Eileen knows the difference between love and lust and there was no information given about any of her lovers to help me understand why she was "in love" (her term) with any of them. They changed so quickly that I could not keep track.This book was about nothing as far as I could see. Maybe I just did not get it.

[eachurch-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Eileen Myles has an incredibly strong voice, and ‘Chelsea Girls’ made me want to be in a room with her. She approaches difficult subjects with an openness and curiosity that didn’t make me want to judge, but just to listen. Listen to her raw, heartbreaking, unflinching look at a life defined by poverty and art, friendship, love and sex. ‘Chelsea Girls’ is about figuring out how to live when the rules are all subject to question even when we don’t know what questions to ask. I found myself cheering Eileen on as she made herself into the person she already was, although she had no way of knowing it.

[dablackwood · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I received an audio copy of this book from Early Reviewers. I have to agree with runeshower who reviewed this on 6/28. I really could not force myself to listen to the book. I don't think of myself as a prude but I was turned off by the descriptive life style and constant sex and drug references. I thought it just sounded silly. I would love to pass my copy on to someone who might have a more open mind and a younger mindset. Just let me know and it is yours. Otherwise it's going to be going to Goodwill. A huge disappointment! Is half a star the lowest rating? Whatever the lowest possible is, that's what this book gets.