Erika L. Sánchez - Crying in the Bathroom - A Memoir

 

 

Erika L. Sánchez is a Mexican-American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her debut poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion, was published by Graywolf in July 2017, and was a finalist for the PEN America Open Book Award. Her debut young adult novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, published in October 2017 by Knopf Books for Young Readers, was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Awards finalist. It is now is being made into a film directed by America Ferrera. Sanchez was a 2017-2019 Princeton Arts Fellow, a 2018 recipient of the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation, and a 2019 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

 

 

"Equal parts pee-your-pants hilarity and break your heart poignancy- like the perfect brunch date you never want to end!"--America Ferrera, Emmy award-winning actress in Ugly Betty

From the New York Times bestselling author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, an utterly original memoir-in-essays that is as deeply moving as it is hilarious

Growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in Chicago in the nineties, Erika Sánchez was a self-described pariah, misfit, and disappointment--a foul-mouthed, melancholic rabble-rouser who painted her nails black but also loved comedy, often laughing so hard with her friends that she had to leave her school classroom. Twenty-five years later, she's now an award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist, but she's still got an irrepressible laugh, an acerbic wit, and singular powers of perception about the world around her.

In these essays, Sánchez writes about everything from sex to white feminism to debilitating depression, revealing an interior life rich with ideas, self-awareness, and perception. Raunchy, insightful, unapologetic, and brutally honest, Crying in the Bathroom is Sánchez at her best--a book that will make you feel that post-confessional high that comes from talking for hours with your best friend.

 

"Each essay feels like a conversation with a good friend, thanks to Sánchez's warm and vulnerable writing." -- TIME's Roundup of 27 Books You Need to Read this Summer

"Her ability to relate to readers on a personal, intellectual, and cultural levels is one of the book's greatest achievements...An engrossing, accessible, heart-opening recollection of a fascinating life." --Booklist

"A famous Latino comic told me--quoting either Chaplin or Cantinflas or both--that if you tell a story that makes people laugh, that's great, but if you make them laugh and cry, that's genius. Erika Sánchez tells her tale with a 'deluge of unidentifiable feelings that came out through my eyes.' It's only after you've laughed that you understand the heartbreak beneath the laughter. I relished especially the stories she shares about being a wanderer savoring her solitude, a rare gift for a woman, but absolutely essential for any writer." -- Sandra Cisneros, New York Times bestselling author of The House on Mango Street

"Erika's writing grabs a hold and won't let go. She's equal parts pee-your-pants hilarity and break your heart poignancy- like the perfect brunch date you never want to end!-- America Ferrera, Emmy award-winning actress in Ugly Betty

CRYING IN THE BATHROOM is deeply personal, in the best sense -- honest, cutting, hilarious, revelatory. These essays strike deep chords for any of us who came of age in the nineties, or really for anyone who came of age at all. -- Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer finalist for The Great Believers

"After reading, Crying in the Bathroom, Erika L. Sánchez has undoubtedly cemented herself as not just one of my favorite writers, but also as my best friend... in my mind. Because why wouldn't I want to be close to someone so intentional, so funny, so proven, and most importantly, so self-aware they could tell a story about their life in a way that makes me take inventory of my own? To put it simply, which I'm not sure is actually possible, this is a whoopie cushion, a gut punch, and an alarm clock of a book." -- Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author of Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks

Her writing shines with a deep humility wrought from the hard-won nature of her personal peace. The result is another satisfying addition to Sánchez's deeply moving body of works.-- Publishers Weekly

 

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