Body Story (Paperback)

by Julia K. Depree (Author) "This story is not a historical account or a clinical treatise or an impartial narrative..." (more)
Key Phrases: starving body, reading guide, wedding body, New Mexico, Giving Birth, North Carolina (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
DePree, a poet and French professor at Atlanta's Agnes Scott College, has struggled with anorexia for most of her life. In this sensitive memoir, she describes her experiences with the disease and the related behavior patterns that have threatened to disrupt (sometimes successfully) her work and personal life. DePree's illness began at age 13, after her grandmother's death, and continued for nearly 20 years. Although she was an excellent student and skilled violinist in high school, her daily life was overshadowed by anorexia. Starving allowed me to create an interim space between innocence and experience, between being a girl and being a woman." DePree's difficulties continued when she left home for college and during her stints studying overseas. There were brief periods when she gained weight, but DePree was always aware she was hiding in a "glass box" in which she felt safe. Only after the birth of her second child in 1999 did she start undergoing psychoanalysis and taking medication, finally beginning to learn why she was so comfortable as an anorexic. Less graphic than other anorexic autobiographies, this memoir is nevertheless quite moving, thanks to DePree's eloquent writing. She focuses on her feelings, rather than chronicling her diet and exercise, which should help her work resonate with both readers familiar with anorexia and those helping anorexics.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
De Pree's account of her life with anorexia might be characterized as a Sisyphean struggle to keep her body from weighing too heavily on the bathroom scale. She recollects an adolescence consumed with counting calories, early morning weight checks, and concealing her dangerously thin body from her parents. In poetically lean prose, she harks back to the midwestern, middle-class childhood that set the stage for developing emotional issues around food, body image, and sexuality. To begin with, her family idealized control--more specifically, self-control. Moreover, De Pree says that no one ever challenged the popular notion that a woman's appearance was an index of her worth. De Pree also describes several less-than-ideal early sexual images and intimate encounters, which left her unable to cope with her developing body. Despite all that and despite only recently connecting with a mental health professional who could help her in the long run, she managed enough temporary upturns to marry and bear two healthy children. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Swallow Press (June 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804010641
• ISBN-13: 978-0804010641
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,095,930 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is meaningful and insightful for all women, October 26, 2006

By	Erica L. Warren - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I find it odd that nobody has reviewed this book yet. I think it is extremely creative and beautiful. The chapters are labeled poetically; Virgin Body, Girl Body, Starving Body, Wedding Body, Giving Birth, and Blind Spot are most of them. These chapters are not only validating and insightful to the troubles of eating disordered women but also transcend the eating disordered "barrier" by relating fully to all women. At the end of the book the author, a Professor of French at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, provides study questions and discussion topics for group reading making the book ideal for sharing and book clubs. This book is significant and a great work by a strong and very real woman. Do give it a read. You will like it!