Scratched, Elizabeth Tallent
Scratched, Elizabeth Tallent
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Scratched
A Memoir of Perfectionism

Author: Elizabeth Tallent

Narrator: Caroline Turner Cole

Unabridged: 7 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 02/25/2020

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

“Reading Scratched gave me the feeling of standing very close to a blazing fire. It is that brilliant, that intense, and one of the finest explorations I know of what it means to be a woman and an artist.”—Sigrid Nunez, author of The Friend and Winner of the National Book Award for FictionIn a bold and brilliant memoir that reinvents the form, the acclaimed author of the novel Museum Pieces and the collection Mendocino Fire explores the ferocious desire for perfection which has shaped her writing life as well as her rich, dramatic, and constantly surprising personal life.

Scratched is an intimate account of the uses a child, and the adult she becomes, will find for perfectionism and the role it will play in every part of her life. Elizabeth Tallent’s story begins in a hospital in mid-1950s suburban Washington, D.C., when her mother refuses to hold her newborn daughter, shocking behavior that baffles the nurses. Imagining her own mother’s perfectionist ideal at this critical moment, Elizabeth moves back and forth in time, juxtaposing moments in the past with the present in this innovative and spellbinding narrative.Elizabeth traces her journey from her early years in which she perceived herself as “the child whose flaws let disaster into an otherwise perfect family,” to her adulthood, when perfectionism came to affect everything. In the decade between 27 and 37, she publishes five literary books with Knopf and her short stories appear in The New Yorker. But this extraordinary start to her career is followed by twenty-two years of silence. She wrote, or rather published, nothing at all. Why? Scratched is the remarkable response to that question.Elizabeth’s early publications secure her a coveted teaching job at Stanford University. As she toggles between Palo Alto and the Mendocino coast where she lives, raises her son Gabriel, and pursues an important psychoanalysis, Elizabeth grapples with the perfectionism that has always been home to her. Eventually, she finds love and acceptance in the most unlikely place, and finally accepts an “as is” relationship with herself and others. Her final triumph is the writing of this memoir, filled with wit, humor, and heart, and unlike any other you will find. Scratched is a brave book that repeatedly searches for the emotional truth beneath the conventional surface of existence.Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

About Elizabeth Tallent

Elizabeth Tallent, author of a novel and four story collections, has appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Tin House, and ZYZZYVA as well as in the Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, O. Henry Prize, and Pushcart Prize award anthologies. She teaches in Stanford’s Creative Writing Program and lives with her wife, an antiques dealer, on the Mendocino Coast.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on September 24, 2020

I hate the star system. I've chosen two stars because they indicate that the book was "okay". That's the description I would use for this memoir. It doesn't seem right for me to call it "self-indulgent", especially since it's a memoir so what else could it be? But there are memoirs that are stories......more

Goodreads review by Marc on May 25, 2020

This was a difficult read but I'm very glad I read it. Perfectionism is toxic and Elizabeth Tallent does an exceptional job in sharing the difficulties it has caused in her life in addition to her writing. Much of this memoir is exquisitely written, although there are some sections where I found mys......more

Goodreads review by Honor on January 12, 2021

I don’t know. A very good writer, who by her admission of the perfectionism that discouraged her to interrupt her writing for 20 years, also helps identify just what makes her writing so good: precision, sharp observation, exhaustiveness. But while her life is interesting - wild and bohemian, poorly......more

Goodreads review by Megan on April 24, 2020

After an incredibly promising start, publishing 5 critically acclaimed books and nabbing a prestigious professorship at Stanford, Elizabeth Tallent published nothing for 22 years. This memoir is her reckoning with the perfectionism that has both made her and plagued her. What results is a brilliant......more

Goodreads review by Ammara on February 28, 2020

This is a deep dive into the author’s life and struggles with perfectionism, which is more destructive than many realize. The book is a little difficult to read but there are some excellent insights into the author’s issues that kept her from completing and publishing for two decades. Some of the is......more