17 Dresses
  • Published:
    Oct-2018
  • Formats:
    Print
  • Main Genre:
    General Fiction
  • Pages:
    250
  • Purchase:
  • Share:

In the generation shortly before eating disorders are diagnosed and treated, Paulette quietly starves, heaves and cuts herself. Built like a '50s pin-up girl with a pleading pout, she detests herself and even though she lives for beauty, she cannot see her own. She takes sanctuary in the secondhand dresses scored in thrift and vintage shops, a world of storied fabrics and a beacon for something meaningful beyond the California ideal that surrounds and often suffocates her. At 15, Paulette is a rocket heading straight into mid 1970's space. She has so little guidance and yet quite a lot of good fortune. Luckily she has a grandmother who relates to Paulette in the language of old clothing. And then there is her on-again, off-again romance with the semiotician Benjamin, who unzips more than a figure of speech. Over the course of seventeen years and seventeen vintage dresses, each frock tells a delicate tale, uttering significance and inspiring Paulette's transformation from girl, to gal to grown. Part coming of age, part homage to the rousing world of vintage, 17 Dresses is a haute and haunting glance at the suffering that comes from not wanting to "fit in" to anything but that venerable dress in the window.

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EDITIONS
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    • First Edition
    • Oct-2018
    • Padaro Press
    • Trade Paperback
    • ISBN: 0990696693
    • ISBN13: 9780990696698



View the Complete Pamela Klein Book List