Devil_cover.jpgWe are fortunate to be a part of Jenny Traig’s virtual book tour for her memoir Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood. I started reading it this week, and from page one my mouth was on the floor. It is a fascinating account of a girl growing up with Scrupolosity, a hyper religious form of obsessive compulsive disorder. I had never even heard of it. To give you an idea about her condition, here is how Jenny discribed it in the book.

“The disease manifested itself in different ways, but they were always, always embarrassing. Sometimes I had to drop to my knees and pray in the middle of student council meetings, and sometimes I had to hide under the bleachers and chant psalms. Sometimes I couldn’t touch anything and sometimes I had to pat something repeatedly. Sometimes I had to wash my hands and sometimes I had to wash someone else’s. Soemtimes I had to purify my binders. Sometimes I had to put all my things in the washing machine.”

But that excerpt doesn’t do justice to how witty she writes. My favorite parts are the ones when her mother is involved. Devil in the Details, just out this September, has received rave reviews. I can tell you it’s well written and she’s so easy going you won’t feel guilty laughing out loud. But Publishers Weekly and Dave Eggers say it much better.

“[Traig’s] behavior makes her seem like a character on ‘Seinfeld” or ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’…Readers who can’t get enough of wacky childhood stories by Agusten Burroughs, David Sedaris, and Haven Kimmel may like [Devil in the Details].”—Publishers Weekly

“I have known Jenny Traig for a while but did not know she was so odd—so dangerously strange. Devil in the Details is breezy and entertaining, and will give great pleasure to anyone who is buggy, obsessive, and who therefore should be jailed. The rest of us, who are sane and perfect, read a book like this with detached amusement, glad that this sort of behavior is limited to teenage Jewish girls.” —Dave Eggers.

So, for Jenny’s virtual book tour stop on Written Road, I asked her to tell us who her favorite female authors are. She will also be stopping by 16 other literary websites that are listed at the bottom of this post.
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Big thanks to Kevin Smokler for setting up her tour. I think these vbts are ingenious and a great way to promote authors. You can read an excerpt and find out more about Jenny and Devil in the Details at her page at Little Brown and Company. And of course, the best way to support her is to buy her book.

From Jennifer Traig:
The following women writers are so talented I would happily give up my own writing career to spend the rest of my life bringing them iced tea and grilled cheese sandwiches so that they might write in productive peace.

Aimee Bender: Makes me want to smash my laptop because I will never, ever be this fresh and good. I especially love An Invisible Sign of My Own but The Girl in the Flammable Skirt is wonderful too.

Kelly Link: So inventive! A treasure! She does this thing with genres . . . oh, never mind. I can’t explain it. Just go get Stranger Things Happen. You will thank me.

Haven Kimmel: Surely you already know and love her. What? You don’t? Go out and get A Girl Named Zippy RIGHT NOW.

Phoebe Gloeckner: It doesn’t seem fair that someone could be such a talented artist AND such a talented writer. In Diary of a Teenage Girl she weaves narrative in and out of comic book panels expertly. It shouldn’t work, but it does, and the effect is just staggering.

Laura Moriarty: For a full year my cousin has been telling me, you must read The Center of Everything, you will love it. I just did and he was right.

“A sweet, often comic series of tender moments spun from real-life battles.”—Christian Science Monitor

Anne Fadiman: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader is an absolute jewel, a perfect book.

“A terrifically entertaining collection of personal essays about books . . . heartening, tender, wise, and hilarious.”— The Boston Book Review

Roz Chast: Everything she comes up with just sends me.

Sarah Vowell: You don’t need me to tell me how great she is, but maybe, I don’t know, maybe you’ve been living on a deserted island without internet service or radio reception. In which case, I’m telling you: she is great.

Lorrie Moore: Ditto (great, deserted island, etc etc). Go get book.
[Here is a page on Lorrie Moore from Seattle Arts and Lectures]

Elizabeth Smart: No, not the plucky Utah girl, but the modernist prose-poem genius. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept is a tooth-gnashing, wrist-slashing, excruciating autopsy of love gone wrong.

Erika Lopez: F! U! N!
[Here’s a book I found by her, and yes, it does look like fun. Flaming Iguanas: An Illustrated All-Girl Road Novel Thing]

Caroline Kraus: Borderlines is completely absorbing and masterfully evocative.

Lauren Slater: Who knew nonfiction could be written so gorgeously? She is just enormously talented. [I found this book, Welcome to My Country]

Hilary Liftin: I bought Candy and Me: A Love Story to give to a friend and liked it so much I kept it for myself.

Thanks for stopping by Written Road, Jenny. To get book reviews, read Jenny’s blog posts, and dig deeper into the literary buzz about Jenny and Devil in the Details….surf on.

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