The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America, New Edition

By Michelle Tea

Book Overview

The critically acclaimed adventures of an ex-Goth, ex-straight-girl, ex-lesbian, ex-Catholic schoolgirl on the road in 1990s America.

Published by Semiotext(e) to critical acclaim in 1998, Michelle Tea's debut novel The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America quickly established Tea as an exciting new literary talent and the voice of a new generation of queer, bisexual, transgendered, and straight youth. The Village Voice called Passionate Mistakes "the legacy of thirty years of feminism," and Eileen Myles, writing in the Nation, hailed the novel as "a hunk of lyric information that coolly, then frantically, describes the car wreck of her generation. "The too-smart, caustic, and radiant narrator of Passionate Mistakes is, at twenty-seven, an ex-Goth, ex-drummer, ex-straight girl, ex-lesbian separatist vegan graduate of vocational high school in the working class town of Chelsea, Massachusetts. Written with lyrical precision and charm, the novel describes a journey with no final destination, a fast-paced and picaresque road trip that yields a redemptive vision of an America that has nothing left to offer its youth.

This new edition of a Semiotext(e) classic includes critical essays by Brandon Stosuy and Eileen Myles that describe Michelle Tea's achievement as a literary innovator and cultural icon. Michelle Tea is the prolific author of the Lambda Award-winning Valencia, the graphic novel Rent Girl, the "inspired queer bildungsroman" Rose of No Man's Land, and other books. She was a 1999 recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award for fiction. Her critically acclaimed books have appeared on "books of the year" lists in publications ranging from the Voice Literary Supplement to the San Francisco Chonicle. She lives in San Francisco.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1584350520
• ISBN13: 9781584350521
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Semiotext(e)
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

I liked the book

As you can see with the other reviews, it is a book that does not let people untouched or indifferent. I am not sure if my review comes too late (last review before mine was quite some time ago), but here it is anyway: I really liked the book. Obviously not everyone enjoys the style, but if you do it is a great read ... I recommend that you take a chance.

tea taught myself to me

michelle tea's first work of prose, "passionate mistakes" won me over to her instantly. i read this book in one sitting (it's a little short, but potent) and i feel changed mentally by it. when i read this book, i felt cool... like i was hanging out with michelle and her friends, doing crazy stuff, living the young punk-dyke life. and that was fun. i would recommend this book followed by "valencia".

absolutely incredible

i saw michelle tea read from this book at a poetry thing at my college. and when i was reading it i could hear her voice saying the words in my head. it was absolutely incredible. she is so passionate about her writing. i couldn't put it down. definately a must read.

Michelle darling, hurry up and write another-absolutely fab!

Ms. Tea's zest for life and magnetism for adventure drips like honey from each and every page of this luscious journal. Grimy and gritty, Tea's seductive tales left me in the throws of nostalgia for my own teenage debauchery in Boston. A must read. Buy this book. Now.

A Fun, Fast & Risky Coming of Age Story!

Michelle Tea's debut spins a mesmerizing spider web of her life's little adventures. Part Mary Gaitskill (who has a cover blurb), part Cookie Meuller, and part Blake Nelson, her style wins you over quickly but has its own dark intentions. I especially liked the tone of the book and her unpolitical and honest observations about sexual situations.