Homesick: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Finding Hope [Hardcover]

Jenny Lauren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2004

This startlingly plainspoken and unflinching first-person account by the niece of fashion icon Ralph Lauren details a wrenching struggle with anorexia and bulimia -- and speaks powerfully to a widespread failure by the medical community to understand eating disorders.

With captivating blue eyes and dark hair, Jenny Lauren looked as though she'd stepped out of one of the glossy ads for which her uncle is famous. It was not long, however, before Jenny found herself in a world where it was easy to see herself as less than perfect. As a young dancer, she felt insecure that her muscular frame did not seem to measure up to the slim figures of the other girls. She was ten years old when she first starved herself. Although there were brief periods of recovery, Jenny spent much of her teens and early twenties bingeing, purging, and compulsively exercising. In 1997, her body finally broke down after years of relentless ravaging; her small intestine herniated. She could barely walk. But physician after physician told Jenny her ailments were largely in her head. Eventually Jenny's condition was connected to her eating disorder and the resulting strain on her digestive system, but it was too late -- irreparable damage appeared to have been done.

Although "Homesick" centers around Jenny's struggle with an eating disorder, as well as the dramatic surgery she was forced to undergo as a consequence, it is a much larger story that focuses on universal issues: the intricacies of family ties, the pressures of society, the search for selfhood, and ultimately, the power of finding hope. From the New York fashion shows to the art galleries of Santa Fe, from the Mayo Pain Management Clinic in Minnesotato the healing sanctuaries in Brazil, Jenny takes the reader on a cinematic odyssey to self-discovery. With flashes of wit and a knowing beyond its young writer's years, "Homesick" is a riveting and emotionally complex story of pain and tentative, hard-won recovery.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This memoir about bulimia and its effects by Ralph Lauren's niece alternates between the gruesomely fascinating and tediously sad. Thirty-one-year-old Lauren, whose father (Ralph's brother) heads Ralph Lauren Men's Design, depicts in excruciating detail her odyssey through bingeing, purging, the debilitating sickness that ensues and her struggle to heal. Her story spans her life from the age of nine, when she's rejected by the prestigious School of American Ballet and subsequently embarks on her first attempt to starve herself into the perfect dancer's physique, to her torments as an adult running the gamut of traditional doctors and New Age healers as she tries to recover from a painful and depressing illness presumably brought on by her compulsive fasting, bingeing, purging and exercising. The pressure from her family to be beautiful and her alienation from her own body emerge as Lauren minutely describes her agonies over what she'll eat at each next meal, the clothing choices of everyone she meets and the intimate details of her bowel movements. This book raises the question of whether contemporary fashion standards pressure young women into the destructive behaviors of anorexia and bulimia. Lauren is intelligent, creative and a skilled writer, and she evokes empathy. She has a few encouraging epiphanies, as when, at age 30, she attends a Ralph Lauren fashion show and realizes, "The clothing is incredible as always, but who needs it?" The book's abrupt ending and dearth of conclusions, however, disturbingly portend that the reader may come away with more insights than the author.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Lori Gottlieb

author of "Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self"

Almost every girl wakes up one morning wondering whether she's too fat -- but if you're Jenny Lauren, that's a particularly loaded question. The niece of fashion icon Ralph Lauren, Jenny grew up with cultural pressure on steroids. While it seemed from the outside that she shared the charmed life of her uncle's glamorous models, Lauren's teens and twenties more closely resembled a horror film where calories were her tormentor. In this searing, no-holds-barred memoir, Lauren offers a truly unique perspective on the complex tangle of food, family ties, media messages, and the search for identity that underlies today's epidemic of eating disorders.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Atria; 1 edition (April 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074345698X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743456982
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,429,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An epic quest without an ending, July 23, 2006

By 

M. Mitchell - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Homesick: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Finding Hope (Paperback)

I have never read anything where the author is so frustratingly self-involved and yet so amazingly lacking in self-awareness. The whole book is a poorly written festival of whining.

The writer spends the book searching for a cure to one ailment after another--all using her parent's money. Anytime they don't automatically pony up with the money she whines until they give in (bad enabling parents, bad, bad!).

I was amazed that anyone could go through the process of writing such a book and not start to gain some sort of self-awareness. For example: Jenny complains that she needs an operation. The doctor does not want to do it. Jennie demands it. After having the operation she's told by some lay person that the operation was a bad idea. Jenny then rails at the doctor for butchering her. Has she forgotten that she was the one that demanded it against medical advice?

The saga of how she took more pain medication than she was supposed to and then got painfully constipated is another example. (Jenny, if you're reading, don't take more pain medication than you're prescribed, and if you do, accept the consequences, don't blame it on others!)

Then we get to hear how hard she works at getting better by spending weeks and weeks at a spa (yet again spending her parents money while contributing nothing to society--unless you want to argue for the Bush theory of "trickle down economics").
The final insane leg of the journey is a trip to South America (yet again paid for by money wheedled from her parents) to visit a healing guru. As much time or more is spent talking about what kind of souvenirs she bought as anything about her visit with the guru (who charges a fee for bottled holy water in the gift shop. Yes the healing guru has a gift shop!) Money wisely spent.

The whole book ends with Jenny saying she has not found any significant resolution to her quest but that she will continue to do basically the same thing she's done throughout the book over and over again until she finds what she's looking for!
The most unfortunate thing about all of this is that this book actually got published and that Ms. Lauren got paid an advance more than twice what most Americans make in a year!

This book has no insight whatsoever. Anybody who thinks that this could be a good book for others with eating disorders should know that it will leave the reader frustrated and with the sense that there is little hope for a cure even with more resources than 99% of the population. If anything, this book is a badly written portrait of self-pitying self-centeredness enabled by privledge.

Ultimately, I feel for Ms. Lauren. She is obviously dealing with a lot of pain. I just don't think that the book she wrote is of enough value to share with the world. If anything, it's probably done Ms. Lauren more harm than good because her whining must feel more legitimate now that it's in print. Maybe the final blame should go to the editor who believed that the Lauren name would sell enough books to turn a profit no matter how unworthy the content.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unexpectedly Poignant, April 19, 2004

By 

"auntstephie" (Tucson, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Homesick: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Finding Hope (Hardcover)

I expected very little from this book, to be honest. But how wrong I was. Each time I was about to conclude Ms. Lauren is a spoiled brat, she would surprise me with her actions, intelligence and most of all, her elegant and honest writing.

It was sad, however, to read about all the time and talent Ms. Lauren has wasted on her disease. She is clearly a sensitive and thoughtful person who on some emotional level cannot get past a desire for the perfection of an imagined life. Sad because so many women fall prey to this and end up ruining the natural beauty that comes from inner peace.

Not only could I not put this book down - spent all day Saturday engrossed - I have not stopped thinking about it. Ms. Lauren grew up with grueling expectations of beauty. Her discipline was Olympian and she paid a steep, horrible price for trying so desperately to control her body.

I am so thankful that Ms. Lauren was courageous enough to show the unglamorous side of anorexia. When I was growing up attending an all-girls' private school during the 1980s, anorexia was fashionable - the thinner the winner....We had no concept of nutrition, of muscle tone or of antioxidants and healing therapy. It was an era of laxatives, ipecac, vomiting and self-denial.

Unfortunately many of the books that came out about anorexia at that time- "The Best Little Girl in the World," "Second Star to the Right" and "Goodbye Paper Doll" - all made anorexia sound like a great way to get attention, fit into lots of clothes, and even find boyfriends.

Thanks to writers like Marya Hornbacher and now, Jenny Lauren,the uglier side of eating disorders is being revealed. Thank-you to Ms. Lauren. I hope she will keep us all updated on her progress.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars TEDIOUS, May 14, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Homesick: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Finding Hope (Hardcover)

My sister died as a result of an eating disorder. No one understood her. The sad thing about this book is that only through escapism has the author been aided.

I think that doctor's misguide patients, routinely. I did not care for this book though. I felt it was whiny and an unending pitious vent. I wish the author well in her recovery, but am sad I wasted the money buying this, "poor rich me" rant. The author should be thankful for the family support and the freedom she has enjoyed instead of focusing so intently on the crackhead, the sexual acting out, etc. She really has problems and I hope she finds herself or healing or anything good. I would not recommend this book as it has affected me negatively.