Heart of Glass: A Memoir

(Paperback)

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Description

Author of the New York Times bestseller Chanel Bonfire, Wendy Lawless chronicles her twenties: the darkly funny story of a girl without a roadmap for life who leaves her disastrous past to find herself in the gritty heart of 1980s New York City.

Before downtown Manhattan was scrubbed clean, gentrified, and overrun with designer boutiques and trendy eateries and bars, it was the center of a burgeoning art sceneboth exciting and dangerous. Running from the shipwreck of her glamorous and unstable childhood with a volatile mother, Wendy Lawless landed in the center of it all. With an open heart and a thrift store wardrobe, Wendy navigated this demi-monde of jaded punk rockers, desperate actors, pulsing parties, and unexpected run-ins with her own past as she made every mistake of youth, looked for love in all the wrong places, and eventually learned how to grow up on her own.

With the same biting humor (People) that made her powerful (USA TODAY) and illuminating and inspiring (Readers Digest) New York Times bestseller Chanel Bonfire so captivating, Wendy turns her brutally honest and often hilarious spotlight on herself, recounting her tumultuous and giddy twenties trying to make it in the creative underbelly of New York City, all the while searching for love, a paying job, and occasionally, a free meal.

Reviews

Praise for Heart of Glass

"Lawless is a plucky, sympathetic narrator and grapples bravely with setback after setback. * New York Times Book Review *
"Lawless has a fine eye for detail; reading about her misadventures will give readersespecially anyone who was single in 1980s New York Citya delicious shudder." * People *
Lawless has an engaging voice seems to have an unending number of stories to tell. * USA Today *
[Lawless] writes with charming candor... A lively, at times scandalous, tale of a twenty-something discovering herself. * Booklist *
"As she shares her progression from an insecure, troubled girl to a young woman who can stand confidently on her own two feet, the unsinkable Lawless tells a tale of triumph over a difficult past. Readers will be drawn to her unique blend of sweetness, grit, and resilience." * Publishers Weekly *
The details shine. Lawless is observant and often profanely funny. * Columbus Dispatch *
"Before Lena Dunham and Co. were traipsing through Millenial-clogged Brooklyn, there was the young, fierce, and funny Wendy Lawless, conquering through the weird, wild, wide-open streets of Manhattan in the early-80s. Witty, poignant and vulnerable, Lawless knows how to spin a tale." -- Michael Hainey, author of AFTER VISITING FRIENDS (A Son's Story)
Wendy Lawless has written a beautiful, and sometimes gritty memoir of her twenties. After a tumultuous upbringing, she finds herself lost and looking for love among artists in 1980's New York City, while finding her footing as an actress. Inspiring and often heart-wrenching, Wendy finally discovers what it means and how it feels to live happily ever after. -- Christina McDowell, author of AFTER PERFECT
Praise for Chanel Bonfire

Lawless leavens her harrowing story with biting humor and never descends into self-pity--but boy, do we feel for her. -- People
"Frequently entertaining chronicle of a daughters sad, detached upbringing." -- Kirkus
[A] darkly comic memoir[Lawless] chronicles her mothers decline from sparkling femme fatale to desperate drunk in this simultaneously chilling and hilarious tale, whose unmistakable message is that though Lawless has, in some ways, led a privileged life, she never got the one thing she most wanted: her mothers love." -- O Magazine
[A] quick but powerful read that you can only wish was fiction. -- USA Today
Lawlesss chronicles of life with her charming, wildly unstable mother could be bleak, but the authors wit, resilience, and compassion make her story illuminating and inspiring. -- Reader's Digest
"A searing memoir that reads like a novel, as Lawlesss beautiful, unstable mother careens through the swinging sixties and seventies in New York, London, Paris and Morocco, two captive blond daughters in tow, before bottoming out in Boston. What astonishes is the authors ability to tell her often hair-raising story of survival not only with lucidity and fluency but wry humor." -- Anne Korkeakivi, author of An Unexpected Guest
[A] wrought and engaging memoir. * Publishers Weekly *
"Mothers, in spite of what we wish desperately to believe, are sometimes very, very bad at taking care of children. Wendy Lawless survived her mother's flagrant horror show to bear witness and record her astonishing childhood. Chanel Bonfire makes an undesirable truth more vivid: some mothers just plain suck." -- Susanna Sonnenberg, New York Times bestselling author of Her Last Death and She Matters
Chanel Bonfire is both terribly funny and terribly tragic, often at the same time. With remarkable clarity, wit, and grace, Wendy Lawless recounts a childhood defined by her wildly unstable mother, a woman who can morph from Grace Kelly to Joan Crawford in the blink of an eye. I laughed a lot, teared up once or twice, and called my mom to say I love you once I finished.
-- Cristina Alger, bestselling author of The Darlings
What a heart-breaking memoir. I will never look at a blue nightgown the same way again!
-- Tim Gunn, New York Times bestselling author of Gunns Golden Rules and Tim Gunns Fashion Bible
This miracle of a memoir is completely free from self-pity, and its surprisingly suspenseful. -- BookPage
I was blown away by Wendy's ability to tell the story of such an emotional, troubled upbringing with such heart, love, and oftentimes, humor. If she isn't bitter, maybe none of us have the right to be. I found her story riveting. -- Sarah Colonna, New York Times bestselling author of Life as I Blow It

Author Bio

Wendy Lawless is an actress who has appeared on television, in regional theater, Off-Broadway in David Ivess Obie-winning play All in the Timing, and on Broadway in The Heidi Chronicles. Her work has appeared in Redbook magazine, on Powells.com, and in the local Los Angeles press. She lives in California with her screenwriter husband and their two children.