The second or third most artistically revered Dunham, Lena Dunham took to the stage at the aptly-named Book Expo America in America this weekend past to not only joke about how she’d been so lucky and empowered as to have fucked each of her co-panellists but to also read aloud an excerpt from the introduction to her $3.7 million book of essays, Not That Kind Of Girl – an earnest parody of self-help guides like Gurley Brown’s 1982 book Having It All, written from a place of twenty-something self-loathing for women who have “grown up in the Internet age”. Sounds fun.
In related news from last weekend, Lena Dunham’s Butt felt moved to issue a defence of its special needs rescue dog Lamby, who having bitten said butt, drew both blood and the Internet’s ire. Do with this what you will:
If I can take what I’ve learned in this life and make one treacherous relationship or degrading job easier for you, perhaps even prevent you from becoming temporarily vegan, then every misstep of mine will have been worthwhile.
This book contains stories about wonderful nights with terrible boys and terrible days with wonderful friends, about ambition and the two existential crises I had before the age of twenty. About fashion and its many discontents. About publicly sharing your body, having to prove yourself in a meeting full of fifty-year-old men, and the health fears (tinnitus, lamp dust, infertility) that keep me up at night.
I’m already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you with this book, but also my future glory in having stopped you from trying an expensive juice cleanse or having the kind of sexual encounter where you keep your sneakers on.
No, I am not a sexpert, a psychologist, or a registered dietician. I am not a married mother of three or the owner of a successful hosiery franchise. But I am a girl with a keen interest in self-actualization, sending hopeful dispatches from the front lines of that struggle.
At $56,000 USD per page, Not That Kind Of Girl will birth itself unto the world October 7th.
via The Cut
Photo: Lena Dunham via Instagram
