Shocked, Patricia Volk
Shocked, Patricia Volk
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Shocked
My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me

Author: Patricia Volk

Narrator: Patricia Volk

Unabridged: 5 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/01/2013

Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of Stuffed comes an intimate memoir, written with charm and panache, that juxtaposes two fascinating lives—the iconoclastic designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the author's own mother—to explore how a girl fashions herself into a woman.Audrey Morgen Volk, an upper-middle-class New Yorker, was a great beauty and the polished hostess at her family's garment district restaurant. Elsa Schiaparelli—"Schiap"—the haute couture designer whose creations shocked the world, blurred the line between fashion and art, and believed that everything, even a button, has the potential to delight.Audrey's daughter Patricia read Schiap's autobiography, Shocking Life, at a tender age, and was transformed by it. These two women—volatile, opinionated, and brilliant each in her own way—offered Patricia contrasting lessons about womanhood and personal style that allowed her to plot her own course.Moving seamlessly between the Volks' Manhattan and Florida milieu and Schiap's life in Rome and Paris (among friends such as Dal├¡, Duchamp, and Picasso), Shocked weaves Audrey's traditional notions of domesticity with Schiaparelli's often outrageous ideas into a marvel-filled meditation on beauty and on being a daughter, sister, and mother, while demonstrating how a single book can change a life.

About Patricia Volk

Patricia Volk is the author of the memoir Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family and four works of fiction. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she has written for the New York Times, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and Playboy. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sally

As a huge fan of STUFFED, Volk's earlier memoir about her restaurant-owning New York City family, I was eager to get my hands on SHOCKED; My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me. I was not disappointed. "I am good at reading her," the author writes of her mother, "the most beautiful woman in the world." "It......more

Goodreads review by Laurie

When I picked up this book, I thought that the author’s mother was perhaps friends with Schiaparelli and that she had grown up with both women in her life. No, it turns out,, neither mother nor daughter ever met the imaginative designer- the only connection was that Audrey Volk wore Schiaparelli’s p......more

Quotes

“A brilliant, boisterous memoir that breaks new ground in terms of the memoir form…I cannot tell you, apart from its other virtues, how much fun this memoir is to read.” Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“Volk expresses a touch of heroine worship for both her mother’s glamorous pragmatism and Elsa Schiaparelli’s functional extravagance. The women make an unlikely pair, but Volk’s nostalgic voice wisely integrates the best of them both. It does so with such engaging generosity and kindness that this funny, melancholic memoir ultimately feels like an embrace.” Andrew Solomon, New York Times bestselling author of Far From the Tree

“A sensual memoir…It’s a time machine laden with long-lost physical objects (dance cards, darning eggs), a meditation on the plastic possibilities of womankind, and a very special treat.” New York Times Book Review

“It’s a pure joy to be in Patricia Volk’s presence on the pages of her new book, Shocked. A diptych portrayal of her gorgeous and infuriating mother and the great fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, this is an irresistible tour de force that puts on display Volk’s intelligence, wit, and sparkling prose.” Louis Begley, Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award–winning author

“Bestselling author Volk is at the top of her game with this witty, nostalgic look at womanhood and style. She juxtaposes remembrances of her beautiful mother with the life of an iconic Italian fashion designer in a way that’s charming and wholly original.” Reader’s Digest

“We feel life’s potential swirling around Volk as she lovingly chronicles the unique paths of her two muses.” O, The Oprah Magazine

“Volk is thoroughly likable, warm, and generous, with a well-tuned ear and a vivid sense of humor. She captures her mother perfectly…[Her] delightful book draws you in right at the start.” Wall Street Journal

“Volk [stitches] together a visually evocative coming-of-age story about fashion, femininity, and the often complicated mother-daughter dynamic.” Entertainment Weekly

“Humor…emotional complexity…smarts. [Shocked is] a brilliant, boisterous memoir that breaks new ground in terms of the memoir form and also the archetypal story of the mother-daughter bond…I cannot tell you, apart from its other virtues, how much fun this memoir is to read.” NPR

“Volk offers the beautifully rendered story of her own life, of her all-important relationship with her mother, and of the book that was, for her, a touchstone…In a marketplace sodden with memoirs…Shocked stands out both by virtue of its premise and because of the incandescence of its language…It is hard to image that any reader, especially a female reader, will be able to finish Shocked without a match being struck to the dry tinder of their own memories of childhood, setting things ablaze. Shocked is a brilliant thing, well considered, well wrought, and wonderfully well written.” New York Journal of Books

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