Helen Ellis

A sharp, funny, delightfully unhinged collection of stories set in the dark world of domesticity, American Housewife features murderous ladies who lunch, celebrity treasure hunters, and the best bra fitter south of the Mason Dixon line. Meet the women of American Housewife: they wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it's cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. They pump the salad spinner like it's a CPR dummy. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies out of the oven. These twelve irresistible stories take us from a haunted prewar Manhattan apartment building to the set of a rigged reality television show, from the unique initiation ritual of a book club to the getaway car of a pageant princess on the lam, from the gallery opening of a tinfoil artist to the fitting room of a legendary lingerie shop. Vicious, fresh, and nutty as a poisoned Goo Goo Cluster, American Housewife is an uproarious, pointed commentary on womanhood.

Stories

American Housewife

"A fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living as a Southern Lady" --

Essays

Southern Lady Code

Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light

Dissects Southern social-climbing and the lives of three Alabama girls--Sarina Summers, Nicole Hicks, and Bitty Jack Carlson--as they strive to achieve their ambitions, confront obsessive relationships, and break the confines of the community.

A Novel

Eating The Cheshire Cat

Intimate Confessions from a Happy Marriage

Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge

"Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday in 2016."--Title page verso.

Rebecca Lowman

Lisa Cordileone

Kathleen McInerney

Dorothy Dillingham Blue

Felicity Sedgewick

Laura Hull

How and Why People Do It, and the Impact It Can Have

Autism and Masking

"What Curiosity Kills...cracks open the world of Upper East Side prep-schoolers and literally turns it wild, bringing together the best parts of Gossip Girl, Twilight, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer... funny, fierce, and full of surprises." -Hannah Tinti, ALA Alex Award-winning auth or of The Good Thief Nobody can know your secret. Nobody can know your power. But if nobody knows who you are to begin with...what's stopping you? I whisper, "What's so special about me all of a sudden?" Nick says, "The Turning." Mary feels different, but can't explain why. The fainting, the strange cravings...and worse, the things she's noticed about her body. Mary doesn't know where to turn. If she tells her parents or her sister, she'll risk losing everything. She has no other family, no way of knowing if what she's going through is normal. Everyone she's ever known and loved could reject her... "Helen Ellis is the kind of writer that makes the pages fly and the kind of friend readers will wish they had growing up." -Hannah Tinti, ALA Alex Award-winning auth or of The Good Thief

The Turning Book 1: What Curiosity Kills

Meet the women of American Housewife: they wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it's cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. They pump the salad spinner like it's a CPR dummy. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies out of the oven. These twelve irresistible stories take us from a haunted prewar Manhattan apartment building to the set of a rigged reality television show, from the unique initiation ritual of a book club to the getaway car of a pageant princess on the lam, from the gallery opening of a tinfoil artist to the fitting room of a legendary lingerie shop.

Elles portent rouge à lèvre et collier de perles, mettent de l'écran total y compris quand il pleut. Elles mijotent. Elles moulinent. Elles sirotent. Elles sacrifieraient tout pour leur mari, leur passion du papier peint, le déhanché de Beyoncé. Même les voisins gênants, même les concierges zélés, même leur belle-mère. Couic. Un geste malheureux, c'est si vite arrivé. Puis se recoiffent et enfournent le dernier plateau de cookies. Féroce, déjanté, sensible, les nouvelles d'American Housewife brosse un tableau désopilant et cruel de la féminité.

The bestselling author of American Housewife and Southern Lady Code returns with a viciously funny, deeply-felt collection of literary essays on love, family, and friendship among grown-ass women. When Helen Ellis and her lady gang arrive for their vacation at the Redneck Riviera they bring a lot with them: stories of five husbands, past and present, seven kids, lost parents, lost jobs, a bad diagnosis, and enough gin and powdered onion dip mix to dehydrate an elephant. Because that's friendship among women old enough to appreciate it: a tapestry woven in the colors of your forties, Clinique moisturizer yellow, Windex blue, and colonoscopy pink. In these twelve gloriously comic and moving essays, Helen Ellis braves a cat lady plastic surgeon for twenty shots of stomach bile in the neck, witnesses the Miracle Whip of life as her 49-year-old second-best friend gives birth, sobs with a stadium full of women as a psychic with a tiara of white blond hair exorcises their sorrows, and gathers up the courage to ask "Are you there, Menopause? It's Me, Helen." A book that reads like the best cocktail party of your life, Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light is chockablock with fabulous characters: Book club ladies who race Roombas, poker players with backpacks of cash, a man who plays the saw, a woman who wears a toilet paper cast on her arm, Southern boy Adonises, garage sale swindlers, and ladies so tipsy they lose their handbags and have to carry their keys in a Piggly Wiggly shopping bag. Alive with the fearless, sensational humor that won Helen Ellis legions of fans, her fierce wit is accompanied in this book by a brave vulnerability, an emotional generosity, and a ferocious love for her friends that takes this acclaimed author to a whole new level of accomplishment.

The bestselling author of American Housewife and Southern Lady Code returns with an “inspiring, hilarious, straight-to-the-point” (Entertainment Weekly) collection of essays on friendship among grown-ass women. When Helen Ellis and her lifelong friends arrive for a reunion on the Redneck Riviera, they unpack more than their suitcases: stories of husbands and kids, lost parents and lost jobs, powdered onion dip and photographs you have to hold by the edges, dirty jokes and sunscreen with SPF higher than they hair-sprayed their bangs senior year, and a bad mammogram. It's a diagnosis that scares them, but could never break their bond. Because women pushing fifty won't be pushed around. In these twelve gloriously comic and moving essays, Helen Ellis dishes on married middle-age sex, sobs with a theater full of women as a psychic exorcises their sorrows, gets twenty shots of stomach bile to the neck to get rid of her double chin, and gathers up the courage to ask, "Are you there, Menopause? It's Me, Helen." A book that reads like the best cocktail party of your life, Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light is alive with the sensational humor and ferocious love for her friends that won Helen Ellis legions of fans. This book has a raw vulnerability and an emotional generosity that takes this acclaimed author to a whole new level of accomplishment.

Autistic people often feel they have to present as neurotypical or perform neurotypical social behaviours in order to fit in. So-called 'masking' is a social survival strategy used by autistic people in situations where neurodiversity is not understood or welcomed. While this is a commonly observed phenomenon in the autistic community, the complexities of masking are still not widely understood. This book combines the latest research with personal case studies detailing autistic experiences of masking. It explains what masking is and the various strategies used to mask in social situations. The research also delves into the psychology behind masking and the specifics of masking at school, at social events with peers, and at work. The book looks at the consequences of masking, including the toll it can have on mental and physical health, and suggests guidance for family, professionals, and employers to ameliorate negative effects. With a diverse range of voices, including perspectives across gender, ethnicity and age, this is the comprehensive guide to masking and how to support autistic people who mask.

Helen Ellis

Books

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