Synopses & Reviews
From the creator and director of
Transparent and Emmy nominated writer for
Six Feet Under comes a hilarious and unforgettable memoir.
When Jill Soloway was just thirteen, she and her best friend donned the tightest satin pants they could find, poufed up their hair and squeezed into Candies heels, then headed to downtown Chicago in search of their one-and-only true loves forever: the members of whichever rock band was touring through town. Never mind that both girls still had braces, coke-bottle-thick glasses and had only just bought their first bras...they were fabulous, they felt beautiful, they were tiny ladies in shiny pants.
Now that Jill is all grown up and a successful writer and producer, she can look back on her tiny self and share her shiny tales with fondness, absurdity, and obsessive-compulsive attention to even the most embarrassing details. From the highly personal (conflating her own loss of virginity and the Kobe Bryant accusations), to the political (what she has in common with Monica and Chandra), to the outrageously Los Angelean (why women wear huge diamonds and what they must do to get them), Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants is a genre-defying combination of personal essay and memoir, or a hilarious, unruly and unapologetic evaluation of society, religion, sex, love, and—best of all—Jill.
Review
"Sisterly, smart, funny, and vulgar, Soloway's debut deserves a space on the shelf beside David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs."
-- Entertainment Weekly
Review
"Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants will remind you of those rambling, all-night-long, nothing's sacred talkfests that can happen with a good friend."
-- Glamour
Review
"This is a sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny, sometimes chillingly truthful, completely wonderful book."
-- Bruce Eric Kaplan, New Yorker cartoonist and author of This Is a Bad Time
Review
"I felt a little guilty and refreshed after reading this book, like spending an illicit afternoon with an amazing stranger. Soloway wears her prose like a red cape; she's an extremely engaging writer behind her billowing chutzpah."
-- Andrei Codrescu, author of Wakefield and Casanova in Bohemia
Review
"Were I a whip-smart Jewess possessing a natural gift for observation and a wickedly funny insightfulness, I hope I would write a book just like the one Jill Soloway has written."
-- Andy Richter
Review
"Jill Soloway is a wickedly funny, sharp and poignant writer, willing to speak out against sexism in all its forms, from diamond-ring ads to the media assault on Monica Lewinsky."
-- Amy Sohn, author of My Old Man
Review
"Hilarious, painful, angry and astute,
Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants is a great read -- a dryly funny chronicle of one woman's journey to live a meaningful life in an increasingly meaningless culture."
-- Alan Ball, creator of Six Feet Under
Review
"Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants is exuberant and hilarious. It is outrageous in its proclamations and tender in its revelations. Sex, motherhood, family, growing up,feminism, Hollywood -- it's all here, madly inspected and dissected."
-- Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir!
Review
"A hilarious must-read for any young woman who's suffering from an 'image problem.' If feminism had always been this funny, there never would have been a backlash."
-- Neal Pollack, author of Never Mind the Pollacks
Review
"Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants burns bright with voice and momentum and I DID laugh out loud -- this is a fiery, fun-filled, Feather Crest-ian read."
-- Aimee Bender, author of Willful Creatures and The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
Review
"In Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants, Soloway courageously dives right into her past -- armed with a dangerous intellect, a prickly sense of outrage, and a scathing wit -- and comes to the surface with a riotously good read...I can't help considering a woman who's this honest and this funny as nothing short of revolutionary."
-- Salon.com
Review
"FINALLY, a woman has written a hilarious manifesto for the post-feminist generation.... Soloway's wickedly entertaining prose and willingness to bare the most amusing, intimate moments of her life reveal the contradictory challenges of being a smart, sexy woman who wants to have it all."
-- New York Post
Synopsis
This hilarious, whip-smart collection of essays from a top writer and producer of Six Feet Under crisscrosses from the highly personal (conflating her own loss of virginity and the Kobe Bryant accusations), to the political (what she has in common with Monica and Chandra), to the outrageously Los Angelean (why women wear huge diamonds and what they must do to get them). Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants is a genre-defying combination of personal essay and memoir, or a hilarious, unruly and unapologetic evaluation of society, religion, sex, love, and -- best of all -- Jill Soloway.
About the Author
Currently the creator and director of critically acclaimed series Transparent, Jill Soloway is an Emmy nominated writer and coexecutive producer for HBO’s Six Feet Under and creator of Sit n’ Spin, a night of comedic storytelling in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husfriend and her son.
Table of Contents
Contents Introduction A, or, The Porno-ization of America
Introduction B, or, He Just Wants to See Your Panties
Introduction C, or, Summer Needs to Come Already
1 Coming Home (Early) 2 Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants
3 Lotion Bag
4 Monica, Chandra, and Me
5 Please Don't Try to Kill Me After You Read This
6 Found My Way in LA
7 Jill of Finland
8 Shoemaker's Daughters
9 Black was Beautiful
10 Everything Happens for a Reason
11 Why Jews Go to the Bathroom with the Door Open
12 Diamonds
13 Lesbo Island 204
Appendix 1, or, Brain Pickin's
Appendix 2, or, More Pickin'
Appendix 3, or, Oh, Yeah
Application to live on Feather Crest
© and copy 2005 by Jill Soloway