The provocative author of Prozac Nation talks about the 20th anniversary of her groundbreaking memoir and why it’s so damn hard to be a writer today.
Riverhead Books / Via en.wikipedia.org
In 1994, at the age of 26, Elizabeth Wurtzel essentially created the genre that we now call "confessional memoirs." Her memoir, Prozac Nation , was a seminal and frank account of her battle with depression during her years at Harvard. The book was lauded for its vivid prose, which exuded the raw emotional honesty of Sylvia Plath's diaries and the undulating lyricism of a Bob Dylan song. But it also showed that writing can function like a church confessional, providing a screen through which writers and their readers could whisper to each other their innermost secrets, and let one another know that they are not abnormal or alone.
When I write to Wurtzel proposing this interview (which has been edited for length), our email exchanges confirm what I've always suspected: that she is refreshingly blunt and effortlessly cool. I suggest taking her out to lunch near BuzzFeed's offices, to which she responds, "I happen to have a deep and wide aversion to streets in the 20s... I also think that nothing good happens before 5:00. You are totally welcome to come to my place for a glass of wine; Isn't that a better idea?" A few days later, she writes, with her characteristically wry humor, "I have red wine, so let me know if you prefer white (or pink). My boyfriend wants to know if this will be an article or a list. My cat wants to know if she will be an internet star."
When I ring her doorbell, she greets me wearing a leopard-print dress and thick high heels. Her loft apartment seems like an adult version of a college dorm room. There's an eclectic array of collected items: a coffee table topped with antique wooden billiard balls and an Etch-a-Sketch over recent copies of Playboy magazine, red block letters spelling out "YES" hanging over the fireplace, an abacus in the corner, Christmas lights hanging in the yard, and the faint smell of candles wafting through the apartment. We discuss her life, her work, feminism, her cat's potential stardom, the state of the world and why America and publishing are collapsing, over a box of macaroons and several bottles of wine. At various points I ask her if she'd like a particularly strong statement to be off the record. "No, no," she says each time, waving her hand dismissively. "Nothing's off the record."
Of course. It is Elizabeth Wurtzel, after all.
Dario Castillo
You mentioned that you're working on an e-book [working title Creatocracy] that's due out soon. Tell me more about it.
Elizabeth Wurtzel: Well I got very interested in the intellectual property clauses in the Constitution, especially since for the longest time it was the only one. And it's quite amazing that they thought to do that in 1789, because ninety percent of the people living here were farmers. It was a good thought because as it turns out we have Hollywood and because great literature sells here. And so I wrote it partly as a lament because this is what makes America great, and to see the internet kill it is sad. You need a good structure for your art to thrive. And if you want a clear sign that the U.S. in in decline, it's that this great model that used to work no longer works. So I would say that the day of the Great American Novel is over because we don't have the proper ways to compensate people for it. So now people who have that creative energy are going to devote it elsewhere, like a dot com-startup.
Stephen Colbert was recently interviewing the founders of Snapchat, who were in college when they launched it, and he said, "Is starting an app today's version of starting a band?" I thought it was an apt analogy.
EW: Yes, and that's what's happening now. I mean, there are no huge rock stars anymore. And you might say, "Do we really need those?" Yes, we do. That was fun. It was fun going to parties where there was cocaine on every surface. They made huge music that everybody listened to. Maybe it's just as good that everyone wants to have the same iPhone, I don't know. I have to figure that whatever is coming next is good and whatever it was ran its course. I think we argue with progress at our peril, so if this is the way it is, there surely must be a point. I always remind myself that Henry Ford said that if he'd asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
From BuzzFeed