List $22.99

Written by Koren Zailckas - Audio book narrated by Ellen Archer - Unabridged Nonfiction - 1 MP3 COMPACT DISC - 10.5 hours

Publisher, Tantor Media (April 2005)

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"The wit and insight rampant in the prose of Smashed raises the book far above the issue of young drinking. Zailckas has captured what's unfortunately become a quintessential American girlhood." —Mary Karr. author of The Liar's Club

From earliest experimentation to habitual excess to full-blown abuse, twenty-four-year-old Koren Zailckas leads us through her experience of a terrifying trend among young girls, exploring how binge drinking becomes routine, how it becomes "the usual." With the stylistic freshness of a poet and the dramatic gifts of a novelist, Zailckas describes her first sip at fourteen, alcohol poisoning at sixteen, a blacked-out sexual experience at nineteen, total disorientation after waking up in an unfamiliar New York City apartment at twenty-two, when she realized she had to stop, and all the depression, rage, troubled friendships, and sputtering romantic connections in between.

Zailckas's unflinching candor and exquisite analytical eye gets to the meaning beneath the seeming banality of girls' getting drunk. She persuades us that her story is the story of thousands of girls like her who are not alcoholics-yet-but who use booze as a short cut to courage, a stand-in for good judgment, and a bludgeon for shyness, each of them failing to see how their emotional distress, unarticulated hostility, and depression are entangled with their socially condoned binging.

Like the contemporary masterpieces The Liars' Club, Autobiography of a Face, and Jarhead, Smashed is destined to become a classic. A crucial book for any woman who has succumbed to oblivion through booze, or for anyone ready to face the more subtle repercussions of their own chronic over-drinking or of someone they love, Smashed is an eye-opening, wise, and utterly gripping achievement.

About the Author: Koren Zailckas grew up in the suburbs of Boston. She studied under Mary Karr at Syracuse University, which was featured in a Time cover article about young women and drinking. "I wrote Smashed because girls are drinking as much and as early, as boys for the first time in history... the consequences of alcohol abuse are far heavier for girls than boys."

About the Narrator: Ellen Archer is an actress and a graduate of the Boston Conservatory of Music in Opera Performance, her recent audiobooks include Trading Up by Candace Bushnell (Sex and the City) and Julia by James Spada. She has recorded several documentaries and over 100 national television commercials.