Girl Walks into a Bar: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Strawberry Saroyan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 8, 2003

From the glittering skyscrapers of Manhattan’s media elite to the slacker haven of a fashionably low-rent L.A. bar, Strawberry Saroyan traces her journey from girl- to womanhood, as well as from fantasy to reality. A powerful and profoundly postmodern coming-of-age story, with a voice reminiscent of Liz Phair’s one moment and Mary McCarthy’s the next, Girl Walks into a Bar explores Saroyan’s struggle not only with who she is and who she wants to be but also with who she is in the context of what she’s supposed to embody: the iconic, media-promulgated “girl,” a twenty-first-century version of Audrey Hepburn standing outside Tiffany’s looking at diamonds.

Girl Walks into a Bar takes a handful of the most striking and formative episodes of Saroyan’s life and brings them to the page as a filmmaker might, zooming in on the crucial “scenes”: Saroyan losing her virginity, starting her own riot-grrrly magazine, falling in dysfunctional love. Yet all the while she’s trailed by that other black-clad girl, the Platonic ideal of so many modern young women’s fantasies. Will the two ever meet? That question lies at the heart of Saroyan’s genre-bending memoir. Girl Walks into a Bar promises to be one of the most memorable debuts of the year.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The life of a young media striver (she's William Saroyan's granddaughter) overflows with brushes with greatness, aborted romances, glamour, doubt and expensive mixed drinks. In Saroyan's Sex in the City-style memoir, she explores her life as a determined 20-something in New York City, enthralled with and then repelled by her own aspirations. Soon after landing a job at Cond‚ Nast Traveler, she becomes disenchanted with the glossy magazine world of which she had so badly wanted to be a part. Saroyan returns to Los Angeles, where she grew up, having "burned out" on the hyper-ambitious lifestyle of New York media by age 25. In L.A., she continues to struggle with the image of success she's created for herself and dabbles in a series of complicated relationships. At times, Saroyan (who is now in her early 30s) gets bogged down by the minutiae of her travails. However, she writes with ease and acuity about personal disappointments and dangerous love interests, putting into words what often goes unsaid about success and its relation to our private lives. After an article she writes for the New York Times Magazine is abruptly dropped, she asks, "Why do we feel like we're going to lose everything personally if we fail professionally?" At this book's heart is the symbiotic relationship between personal and professional expectations. Saroyan's story will no doubt resonate for many, whether they're currently struggling in their careers or are in a position to reflect on the bumpy road that got them where they are.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School--In the 1990s, when the author's grandmother no longer paid for her college tuition, Saroyan won a scholarship to Barnard. This feat seemed relatively pedestrian to her. In fact, Saroyan's life was outside the norms of most 20-somethings. The granddaughter and daughter, respectively, of writers William and Aram Saroyan, the author doesn't identify her celebrity relatives, as those facts are unimportant in this book. Between her artistic parents, who barely made ends meet, and her drug-addicted siblings, she struggled with the pressures of her family, but, more significantly, her own burden to redeem its honor somehow. The book is a series of quests and adventures, through relationships and romance, academic and professional life. Saroyan has the gift to find the profound in the ebb and flow of growing up. She addresses the perennial question: "Who am I and what do I want to be?" Teens will readily appreciate and understand the ongoing process of "becoming" all the while feeling as though there should be closure somewhere, somehow. In a market flooded with superficial and supercilious "chick lit" books, this is a very special autobiography.--Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (July 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 037550611X
• ISBN-13: 978-0375506116
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.8 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,611,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book, December 7, 2005

By 

J. Decostole (NY, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Girl Walks into a Bar: A Memoir (Hardcover)

I normally don't write reviews but just had to when I saw all the negative feedback below. As a 25-year-old, single New Yorker working in the publishing world - I thought this book was dead on with my experiences, fears, thoughts and everything else going on in my life. I don't think the author was trying to make people feel sorry for her (as one reviewer suggested) but rather being very honest about the thoughts in her head. I thought the author described perfectly how the choices and freedom that women have today in terms of career can sometimes be a curse instead of a blessing. I would reccomend this book to anyone who is figuring out what they want to do with their life beacuse if nothing else, it makes you feel like you are not alone.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Infuriating Read, September 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Girl Walks into a Bar: A Memoir (Hardcover)

I started reading this book because I loved the title, AND I could relate - I also worked in the New York media world, recently moved cross-country, and am in my 20s. I've gotten halfway through the book, but I just CANNOT finish it. Forgive me for sending out bad energy with this review, but maybe this will be constructive criticism for Saroyan if she writes a future book. I agree with the reviewer below who wrote that you get the sense that the author is hiding something from you. And that's exactly it! The author hides behind her intellectual, show-offy, wordy style of writing (and thinking). It's as though she's hiding her real feelings behind her sentences, when all the reader wants is to read about the emotional truths, pains, joys, etc.. The author frequently writes as though she's building you up for this great epiphany, but then she deflates the build-up with pseudo-intellectual analyses of her situations and relationships that circle back upon themselves and leave you feeling completely empty. Maybe that was the author's point. But really, as a reader, all you want to say to her is, "Just come out and say it! What are your real feelings?!" And the way she cuts up her sentences with loads of clauses doesn't help the read either. This book had the potential to be a lot more resonant for 20-something career girls, but it ends up reading like the author's own catharsis, which you wonder if she ever really reached.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real Life happens here, September 13, 2011

By 

henry cherry - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girl Walks into a Bar: A Memoir (Hardcover)

The questions asked in this book make it worth the read alone, but how they come to be answered, or how they remain unanswered is the thrill of the ride. Discovering that the world you thought was the 'be all end all' is not lays at the heart of "Girl Walks into a Bar." Failure isn't the biggest threat to success, it turns out. Failure of failure is. Saroyan gets that point across better than most. Beautifully written. Gripping to read.