Lot Six: A Memoir
Written by David Adjmi
Narrated by Micky Shiloah
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
“David Adjmi has written one of the great American memoirs, a heartbreaking, hilarious story of what it means to make things up, including yourself. A wild tale of lack and lies, galling humiliations and majestic reinventions, this touching, coruscating joy of a book is an answer to that perennial question: how should a person be?” — Olivia Laing, author of Crudo and The Lonely City
In a world where everyone is inventing a self, curating a feed and performing a fantasy of life, what does it mean to be a person? In his grandly entertaining debut memoir, playwright David Adjmi explores how human beings create themselves, and how artists make their lives into art.
Brooklyn, 1970s. Born into the ruins of a Syrian Jewish family that once had it all, David is painfully displaced. Trapped in an insular religious community that excludes him and a family coming apart at the seams, he is plunged into suicidal depression. Through adolescence, David tries to suppress his homosexual feelings and fit in, but when pushed to the breaking point, he makes the bold decision to cut off his family, erase his past, and leave everything he knows behind. There's only one problem: who should he be? Bouncing between identities he steals from the pages of fashion magazines, tomes of philosophy, sitcoms and foreign films, and practically everyone he meets—from Rastafarians to French preppies—David begins to piece together an entirely new adult self. But is this the foundation for a life, or just a kind of quicksand?
Moving from the glamour and dysfunction of 1970s Brooklyn, to the sybaritic materialism of Reagan’s 1980s to post-9/11 New York, Lot Six offers a quintessentially American tale of an outsider striving to reshape himself in the funhouse mirror of American culture. Adjmi’s memoir is a genre bending Künstlerroman in the spirit of Charles Dickens and Alison Bechdel, a portrait of the artist in the throes of a life and death crisis of identity. Raw and lyrical, and written in gleaming prose that veers effortlessly between hilarity and heartbreak, Lot Six charts Adjmi’s search for belonging, identity, and what it takes to be an artist in America.
David Adjmi
David Adjmi was called "virtuosic" by the New York Times and was named one of the Top Ten in Culture by The New Yorker in 2011. His plays have been produced and developed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Soho Rep, Lincoln Center, Steppenwolf and many others. He was awarded a Mellon Foundation grant, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Kesselring Prize for Drama, the Steinberg Playwright Award (the “Mimi”), McKnight and Jerome fellowships, and the Bush Artists Fellowship, among others. He is the recipient of residencies from the Dora Maar House, American Academy of Rome, the Bogliasco Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, Corporation of Yaddo, Djerassi, UCross and others. He lives in Los Angeles.
Related to Lot Six
Related audiobooks
This Time for Me: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Logical Family: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Films of Endearment: A Mother, a Son and the '80s Films That Defined Us Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I've Been Wrong Before: Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Song Is You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Later: My Life at the Edge of the World Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Chanel Bonfire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Smile: The Story of a Face Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Eye: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diary of a Drag Queen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Like Crazy: Life with My Mother and Her Invisible Friends Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Molly Bit: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Falconer: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reckonings: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friendship Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Three Viewings Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5She Matters: A Life in Friendships Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dear Mr. You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Tale of Two Omars: A Memoir of Family, Revolution, and Coming Out During the Arab Spring Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mississippi Sissy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Is This OK?: One Woman's Search For Connection Online Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThis Really Isn't About You Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I Live a Life Like Yours: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe House of Impossible Beauties: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Visions and Revisions: Coming of Age in the Age of AIDs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Escape Artist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
LGBTQIA+ Biographies For You
Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Capote: A Biography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Pride: LGBTQ Heroes Who Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I.M.: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Making Love with the Land: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Talking to My Angels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You're That Bitch: & Other Cute Lessons About Being Unapologetically Yourself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Have Something to Tell You: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens: A Memoir of the Beales, The Maysles Brothers, and Jacqueline Kennedy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deaf Utopia: A Memoir—And a Love Letter to a Way of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Karma: My Autobiography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pageboy: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: Built for This: The Quiet Strength of Powerlifting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Chronology of Water: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unprotected: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Naturally Tan: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inverse Cowgirl: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Dream House: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Other Four-Letter Words Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mercury and Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Burst of Light: and Other Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Girls Can Kiss Now: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fixed Stars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miss Memory Lane: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Lot Six
7 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5WOW, amazing. I loved every word of it--a true delight!