Synopses & Reviews
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. (Grade: A-)" Entertainment Weekly
Review
"Soloway...should have quit while she was ahead. Instead, she proffers this dreary collection of autobiographical essays....Occasionally, Soloway gets a laugh...but most of her attempts at humor are just not smart enough to be funny." Kirkus Reviews
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 Ay, Cuba!: A Socio-Erotic Journey
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
"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 Run Catch Kiss
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
"This is a sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny, sometimes chillingly truthful, completely wonderful book." Bruce Eric Kaplan, author of Every Person On the Planet
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. Spending time with her book is like spending an afternoon with your closest, funniest girlfriend the one whose tragic anecdotes and outlandish pronouncements on everything wrong with the world match your own feelings so exquisitely that, after several cups of strong coffee, you feel that together you might stumble on some life-changing epiphany. (Mostly, though, you just snort coffee through your noses.)" Heather Havrilesky, Salon.com (read the entire Salon.com review)
Synopsis
The Emmy-nominated Six Feet Under writer and producer takes it all off in this wickedly entertaining debut collection of very, very personal essays.
About the Author
Jill Soloway is an Emmy-nominated writer and co-executive 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
& copy 2005 by Jill Soloway