Portland Public Library

Little panic, dispatches from an anxious life, Amanda Stern

eng

Includes bibliographical references (page ix)

autobiography

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

Little panic

bibliography

1038786551

Amanda Stern

dispatches from an anxious life

The ordinary world never made sense to Amanda, who grew up certain her friends and family would die or disappear if she quit watching them, compulsively treating every parting as a final good-bye. Shuttled between divorced parents, from a barefoot bohemian existence in Greenwich Village to a sanitized, stricter world uptown, this smart, sensitive little girl experienced life through the distorting lens of an undiagnosed panic disorder. Her darkly funny memoir is at once a love letter to 1970-80s New York City, a coming-of-age story of an anxious, unusually perceptive child, and a window into adult life and relationships lived on the razor's edge of panic

I am not a clock -- Not the right kind of human -- Maybe I am not a person -- How to say what's wrong -- The system of the world -- Countdown to Karen Silkwood -- The underside of perfect -- My real family -- Not-Melissa -- Someone kicked the Earth -- If time were a dog -- Oh how we glowed -- Scapegoat -- Frankie Bird -- Jinx -- Yes, no, maybe, I don't know -- Listen carefully and say exactly what I say -- Normal-sized -- A beautiful, gorgeous life -- A stay-behind kid -- The bright side -- The drainpipe man -- A word never means only one thing -- A sense of rightness -- Hunky dory -- My life stained the world -- I'm the test to solve -- Everywhere I look, families -- Anarchy -- When I turn eighteen -- What if I give birth to myself? -- Who doesn't want to be in a play? -- One right way to be a person -- Homeless -- I am a pinball machine -- The system is the problem -- The dread, the relief -- Waiting to move on -- The body -- Waited my whole life to be normal -- Forever Mama -- Take care of the animals -- Certainty -- To be the same