Koren Zailckas
Encyclopedia
Koren Zailckas is a bestselling American writer and memoirist. Her debut, Smashed
, was released in 2005 by Viking Penguin and became a New York Times bestseller. Zailckas attended Nashoba Regional High School
in Bolton, Massachusetts
and Syracuse University
.
, beginning at fourteen, in an effort to explain the binge drinking phenomenon that plagues America's youth.
Around the time she quit drinking, Zailckas became preoccupied with an old memory, which involved a night that she had her stomach pumped when she was 16. According to Zailckas, she had not thought about that night in a number of years, but she suddenly could not get it out of her head. Eventually, she sat down and wrote about it. The piece later became a chapter in her book.
Around the same time, Zailckas was hearing a lot in the news about “girls of her generation” and how they were drinking younger and more than all the generations of women who'd gone before them. The Harvard School of Public Health
reported, between 1993 and 2001, there was a threefold increase in the number of women who reported being drunk on ten or more occasions in the previous month. Time
magazine ran a cover story about female binge drinkers. Zailckas did not agree with what the psychologists and the sociologists, the clinicians and the statisticians had to say, which was: “girls today are drinking more because they’re just so damn liberated, because they’re bursting with confidence and girl power, because they believe they can match boys everywhere, including the bar.” In her own experience, the author says, she and her female friends drank largely because it was an expression of their unhappiness and lack of confidence. It occurred to Zailckas, then 23, that she could offer a younger perspective.
As a writer, Zailckas says her writing is informed by memoirists Mary Karr
, Nick Flynn
, Tobias Wolff
, as well as novelists T.C. Boyle, Jeffrey Eugenides
, A.M. Homes, Richard Ford
, Haruki Murakami
. She's also admitted she is heavily influenced by music and song lyrics. Zailckas has been quoted as saying, "If you're a writer, there's a lot of inspiration to be found in lyrics. That's the first thing I do before I get to work in the morning: have a cup of coffee and put on a record."
On September 1, 2008 Zailckas married Eamon Hamilton
, singer and songwriter of the acclaimed band Brakes
, whom she met on the social networking site Myspace
, in Romainville
, France.
She also says she finds writing fiction more challenging than writing narrative non-fiction. "For me, fiction-writing is about escapism. Whereas memoir-writing is about facing cold, harsh realities. I'll let you guess which one is more of a party... Naw, in reality, there are challenges to both. In memoir, there's the burden of truth. And in fiction, there's the burden of fantasy. Me, I find fiction harder. There are so many possibilities in fiction. The story can go absolutely anywhere. And that overwhelms me. That strikes fear in my timid, little heart. I like being restricted to the cage of fact, the coop of reality. Without it, I feel a certain agoraphobia."
, U.S. News & World Report
, Glamour
, Jane
, and Seventeen
magazine. She has promoted her book on 20/20, Good Morning America
, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper 360, The View, Topic A with Tina Brown and The Tyra Banks Show
, among others.
Smashed
Smashed is a critically acclaimed memoir written in 2005 by American writer Koren Zailckas and published by Viking Press. The book has spent more than 10 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list.-About:...
, was released in 2005 by Viking Penguin and became a New York Times bestseller. Zailckas attended Nashoba Regional High School
Nashoba Regional High School
Nashoba Regional High School is a high school that is part of the Nashoba Regional School District. It is located in Bolton, Massachusetts and also serves the towns of Lancaster and Stow. As of 2010, it had a student population of just under 1000. The interim school principal for the 2011-12...
in Bolton, Massachusetts
Bolton, Massachusetts
As of the census of 2000, there were 4,148 people, 1,424 households, and 1,201 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 1,476 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 97.76% White, 0.19% African American, 0.05% Native American, 1.30%...
and Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
.
Smashed
Smashed chronicles Zailckas' decade-long struggle with alcohol abuseAlcohol abuse
Alcohol abuse, as described in the DSM-IV, is a psychiatric diagnosis describing the recurring use of alcoholic beverages despite negative consequences. Alcohol abuse eventually progresses to alcoholism, a condition in which an individual becomes dependent on alcoholic beverages in order to avoid...
, beginning at fourteen, in an effort to explain the binge drinking phenomenon that plagues America's youth.
Around the time she quit drinking, Zailckas became preoccupied with an old memory, which involved a night that she had her stomach pumped when she was 16. According to Zailckas, she had not thought about that night in a number of years, but she suddenly could not get it out of her head. Eventually, she sat down and wrote about it. The piece later became a chapter in her book.
Around the same time, Zailckas was hearing a lot in the news about “girls of her generation” and how they were drinking younger and more than all the generations of women who'd gone before them. The Harvard School of Public Health
Harvard School of Public Health
The Harvard School of Public Health is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University, located in the Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill, which is next to Harvard Medical School. HSPH is considered a significant school focusing on health in the...
reported, between 1993 and 2001, there was a threefold increase in the number of women who reported being drunk on ten or more occasions in the previous month. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine ran a cover story about female binge drinkers. Zailckas did not agree with what the psychologists and the sociologists, the clinicians and the statisticians had to say, which was: “girls today are drinking more because they’re just so damn liberated, because they’re bursting with confidence and girl power, because they believe they can match boys everywhere, including the bar.” In her own experience, the author says, she and her female friends drank largely because it was an expression of their unhappiness and lack of confidence. It occurred to Zailckas, then 23, that she could offer a younger perspective.
As a writer, Zailckas says her writing is informed by memoirists Mary Karr
Mary Karr
Mary Karr is an American poet, essayist and memoirist. She rose to fame in 1995 with the publication of her bestselling memoir The Liars' Club...
, Nick Flynn
Nick Flynn
Nick Flynn is an American writer, playwright, and poet. His most recent publication is a play, Alice Invents a Little Game and Alice Always Wins...
, Tobias Wolff
Tobias Wolff
Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is an American author. He is known for his memoirs, particularly This Boy's Life , and his short stories. He has also written two novels.-Biography:Wolff was born in 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama...
, as well as novelists T.C. Boyle, Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer. Eugenides is most known for his first two novels, The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex . His novel The Marriage Plot was published in October, 2011.-Life and career:Eugenides was born in Detroit, Michigan,...
, A.M. Homes, Richard Ford
Richard Ford
Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.-Early...
, Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami
is a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim and numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka Prize and Jerusalem Prize among others.He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature...
. She's also admitted she is heavily influenced by music and song lyrics. Zailckas has been quoted as saying, "If you're a writer, there's a lot of inspiration to be found in lyrics. That's the first thing I do before I get to work in the morning: have a cup of coffee and put on a record."
On September 1, 2008 Zailckas married Eamon Hamilton
Eamon Hamilton
Eamon Hamilton is frontman of Brakes and formerly played keyboards for British Sea Power.-Biography:Eamon Peter Hamilton is the singer and songwriter for the band Brakes, born on 19 April 1974 in Stewart, BC, Canada and raised in Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK.Hamilton moved to Brighton in 2000 and in...
, singer and songwriter of the acclaimed band Brakes
Brakes (band)
Brakes is a four member band from Brighton, England. The group formed in 2003. It consists of Eamon Hamilton , Thomas White , Marc Beatty , and Alex White .-Biography:Brakes formed in 2003, when Thomas White and Alex White of The Electric Soft Parade saw Eamon Hamilton perform...
, whom she met on the social networking site Myspace
Myspace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
, in Romainville
Romainville
Romainville is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-History:On 24 July 1867, a part of the territory of Romainville was detached and merged with a part of the territory of Pantin and a part of the territory of Bagnolet to create the commune of...
, France.
Fury: A Sequel to Smashed
In February 2010, Koren Zailckas announced a sequel to Smashed on her Facebook page. Her follow-up, Fury: a Memoir came out on September 7, 2010. It was published by Viking Penguin, who described it as relating her exploration with her feelings of anger, the effects of that anger and the psychological aspects of repression and the turmoil of her own life which caused it. The book combines sociological research with her personal story.Memoir-Writing
Zailckas downplays the catharsis of memoir-writing, saying, "All said and done, I'm reluctant to say writing Smashed was cathartic. For one, I think we assign that term to women far more often than we assign it to men. All too often, men's works are deemed 'literature' and women's are dismissed as 'therapy.' On a personal level, sure, it's easier to discuss old indignities. Talking, for instance, about a horrifying blackout doesn't rattle me the way it used to. I'm not convinced I've come to term with old aches as much as I've had to numb myself to them for the sake of spreading the book's message. Ultimately, I think a memoir leaves its author with more terror than comfort, more questions than closure. More than anything, I feel a growing breach between 'me' and the 'me' on the page. It's an occupational hazard, I guess. I feel sort of exiled from my own experiences."She also says she finds writing fiction more challenging than writing narrative non-fiction. "For me, fiction-writing is about escapism. Whereas memoir-writing is about facing cold, harsh realities. I'll let you guess which one is more of a party... Naw, in reality, there are challenges to both. In memoir, there's the burden of truth. And in fiction, there's the burden of fantasy. Me, I find fiction harder. There are so many possibilities in fiction. The story can go absolutely anywhere. And that overwhelms me. That strikes fear in my timid, little heart. I like being restricted to the cage of fact, the coop of reality. Without it, I feel a certain agoraphobia."
Alcoholism
Zailckas has been challenged by some readers who want to dispute her assertion that she is "not an alcoholic." In interviews, Zailckas maintains: "I’ve talked to a lot of addiction counselors who say alcoholism is made up of two things: abuse and addiction. God knows I had that abuse down pat. But I don’t know that I necessarily felt (or feel) that addiction. And so no, I don’t identify myself as an alcoholic. That identity didn’t feel true to me, so I didn’t write it. I also think the brand 'alcoholic' prevents a lot of people, especially young people, from seeking help or even reevaluating their relationship with alcohol. In my mind, the whole point of Smashed is to say, you don’t have to be a quote-unquote alcoholic in order to examine the underlying reasons why you're drinking."Appearances
As a journalist, she has contributed to The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
, Glamour
Glamour (magazine)
Glamour is a women's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications. Founded in 1939 in the United States, it was originally called Glamour of Hollywood....
, Jane
Jane (magazine)
Jane was an American magazine created to appeal to the women who grew up reading Sassy Magazine, both of which had Jane Pratt as founding editor. Its original target audience was aged 18–34, and was designed to appeal to women who are irreverent...
, and Seventeen
Seventeen (magazine)
Seventeen is an American magazine for teenagers. It was first published in September 1944 by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications. News Corporation bought Triangle in 1988, and sold Seventeen to K-III Communications in 1991. Primedia sold the magazine to Hearst in 2003. It is still in the...
magazine. She has promoted her book on 20/20, Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper 360, The View, Topic A with Tina Brown and The Tyra Banks Show
The Tyra Banks Show
The Tyra Banks Show, also known as and shortened to Tyra or The Tyra Show, is an American talk show hosted by Tyra Banks. The last new episode aired on Friday, May 28, 2010.-2005-2009: Syndication:...
, among others.
External links
- Author's official website
- Amazon.com entry for "Fury"
- Amazon.com entry for "Smashed"
- Salon.com article on Zailckas and review of Smashed
- review of Fury: A Memoir
- An interview with Koren Zailckas at Hecklerspray
- http://www.janemag.com/yournews/blogs/guest/koren_zailckas/index.htmlKoren Zailckas at JANEJane-Music:* Jane * Jane *Jane , an album by Jane McDonald* "Jane" * "Jane", a song by Ben Folds Five from their 1999 album The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner...
] - http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1646508,00.htmlKoren Zailckas at The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
] - Koren Zailckas at U.S. News and World Report