Charleston County Public Library

Little panic, dispatches from an anxious life, Amanda Stern

eng

Includes bibliographical references

autobiography

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

Little panic

bibliography

1038786551

Amanda Stern

dispatches from an anxious life

"The world never made any sense to Amanda Stern--how could she trust time to keep flowing, the sun to rise, gravity to hold her feet to the ground, or even her own body to work the way it was supposed to? Deep down, she knows that there's something horribly wrong with her, some defect that her siblings and friends don't have to cope with. Growing up in the 1970s and 80s in New York, Amanda experiences the magic and madness of life through the filter of unrelenting panic. Plagued with fear that her friends and family will be taken from her if she's not watching--that her mother will die, or forget she has children and just move away--Amanda treats every parting as her last. Shuttled between a barefoot bohemian life with her mother in Greenwich Village, and a sanitized, stricter world of affluence uptown with her father, Amanda has little she can depend on. And when Etan Patz disappears down the block from their MacDougal Street home, she can't help but believe that all her worst fears are about to come true. Tenderly delivered and expertly structured, Amanda Stern's memoir is a document of the transformation of New York City and a deep, personal, and comedic account of the trials and errors of seeing life through a very unusual lens."--Publisher's website

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

Dispatches from an anxious life