Books like Chelsea Girls

A fast-paced collection of autobiographical stories, Chelsea Girls tracks the author’s coming of age during the social upheaval of the sixties and seventies. Blending fiction and memoir, Eileen Myles makes cool art out of a messy life: their stories read as strings of insouciant anecdotes about everything from their dysfunctional adolescence at the height of the counterculture to the rocky start of their career as a lesbian poet working in a male-dominated field. Blasé and jaded, these tales swiftly recollect premature deaths and debilitating addictions, as well as wild nights out and exhilarating affairs; ironic endings are common, as are caustic descriptions of the author’s acquaintances, enemies, and friends. While easy to read, the stories become repetitive, and the collection feels a bit directionless.