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    Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris
    Unavailable
    Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris
    Unavailable
    Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris
    Ebook192 pages2 hours

    Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris

    By Stephanie LaCava

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    It's Girl Interrupted meets Miranda July—with a touch of Joan Didion—in this captivating collection of original essays revolving around a young American girl's coming of age in Paris. As an adolescent in a foreign country, Stephanie LaCava found an unconventional way to deal with her social awkwardness and feelings of uncertainty about the future by taking solace from the strange and beautiful objects she came across in her daily life. Filled with beautiful illustrations and providing a retrospective of nineties fashion and culture, An Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris is sure to be a collector's item for Francophiles or anyone who has ever found security in the strangest of places.

    Editor's Note

    A delicate constellation…

    Fashion and culture journalist LaCava’s memoir of her expatriate adolescence in France and her quiet mental unraveling is a delicate constellation of poetic prose, beautiful illustrations, and in-depth footnotes.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateDec 4, 2012
    ISBN9780062223661
    Unavailable
    Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris
    Author

    Stephanie LaCava

    Stephanie LaCava is a writer working in New York and Paris. Her work has appeared in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Vogue, and other print and online publications, including The Paris Review and Tin House.

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    Reviews for Extraordinary Theory of Objects

    3.5/5

    49 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      seems interesting!
    • 2/5
      A good title and a quirky technique of extended explanatory footnotes is not enough to raise this self-indulgent memoir above the level of a whiny teen blog. It is not unusual or surprising to learn that a teenage girl thought of herself as weird or strange or unique. That doesn't make her weird or strange or unique. It just makes her an ordinary teenager. That she lives a life of unacknowledged privilege, flitting between homes in New York, Paris, and Cape Cod makes her self-regard near insufferable. Perhaps it is therefore unsurprising that the author has found herself in the world of high fashion, profile blogging, and illness narrative. It's all about the packaging, as evidenced by the fact that I picked this book up in a bookstore and bought it on the strength of its look and feel without knowing anything about it. It isn't that LaCava is a bad writer. Just the opposite. That's the real disappointment here. I think she might be well worth reading if she channelled her teen angst and vaunted reading of books (does that really make someone special these days?) into crafting fiction. And the ability to speak another language might mark you out as brilliant if you are an insular white New Yorker, but I'm not sure it distinguishes you even from the taxi drivers you are so delighted at confounding in Paris, all of whom typically speak more than two languages. I look forward to what this writer produces once she gets over herself. But for now, not recommended.
    • 4/5
      This book is a differently and originally written type of memoir. Moving to Paris as a child, Stephanie feels a strong disconnect to her own life and emotions. Objects, which had always been important to her, become even more so as she uses them to feel a connection to life. She collects archaic facts and figures about people and objects and these also help to fill in the void. Quite a different and inventive way to deal with her loneliness and subsequent depression. I love trivia, and O found the footnotes and pictures in this book wonderful. So many little factoids; that one out of every three bugs is a beetle, the meaning and poisonous qualities of lilies of the valley, the importance and history of rings and bangles and so much more. Also a unique way of showing the reader how her mind was working in its attempt to survive. I gave this book 4 stars because it isn't your usual type of whoa is me, abusive childhood type of memoir and for the unique way in which it is presented.
    • 4/5
      Moving is hard. It's hard as a child and as an adult. And as strange as it sounds, it can be hardest on the awkward, shy, and introverted. Because it takes them so much time to warm up to people and they spend so much time in their own self-contained world, when they venture out of that comfortable solitude, they are more alone than the extroverted person who has had to leave behind a whole pack of friends. I know this because I am that person. And I have moved six times as a child and seven times as an adult. Nothing about moving is easy. But I've never had to move to another country and face cultural and language barriers in addition to the rest of the stresses of moving. Stephanie LaCava was just twelve when her father moved her family to France from the US. As she recounts in her unique and fascinating memoir, An Extraordinary Theory of Objects, this move, coming as it did when she was already feeling like a misfit, absolutely decimated her. As chronicled in these pages, she collected objects that became a way of keeping her anchored to the world, her way of reaching for connection during a painful and hard time of her life.The memoir itself is told in a series of essays capturing memories linked through the cabinet of curiousities that LaCava was accumulating as she struggled to fit into her ex-pat life in suburban Paris. Many of the objects are illustrated in the text and are accompanied by extensively footnoted histories, breaking the narrative flow, causing the reader to retreat from the reality and sadness of LaCava's awkward, lonely teenaged years just as she herself did, folding herself into the objects that she collected and imbued with talismanic importance. It's a risky format as it will alienate some readers but others will be fascinated by this fragile girl's coping mechanism and terribly interested in the tangential information about the objects. I was the latter reader, but as LaCava herself says about the memoir as a whole, "Consider the source."The memoir was moving and very personal, despite the footnote interruptions. It is indeed a bit odd, definitely unusual, and not what most people expect of a memoir. But it showcases beautifully the very remoteness of serious depression, the ache of being an outsider, and the loneliness of teenagers. It is not, however, a memoir of place but rather a person and Francophiles looking for tales of living in Paris will likely come away disappointed by the lack of Parisian feel here. The timing of the essays is not even and so while there are many pieces of her adolescence laid open to the readers' gaze, there are points glossed over and skipped entirely as well plus an essay or two at the end bringing LaCava from her unhappy years in France to her adulthood and to the genesis for the book. The very breadth of the pieces highlights the fact that these are not one overarching narrative but very definitely connected vignettes. There is an emotional distance here, a retreat behind the objects themselves, but it is one I recognize and appreciate, a coping mechanism even now. And LaCava knows that she is looking back at the objects of her childhood, using them as the scrim through which to view a painful and haunting piece of her life. I thoroughly enjoyed this rather non-traditional, quirky, gorgeously designed, and unexpected little book but readers will have to appreciate it for what it is instead of what it's not.