Koren Zailckas (born 1980) is a bestselling American writer and memoirist. Her debut, Smashed, was released in 2005 by Viking Penguin and became a New York Times bestseller. Zailckas attended Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton, Massachusetts and Syracuse University.Smashed chronicles Zailckas' decade-long struggle with alcohol abuse, beginning at fourteen, in an effort to explain the binge drinking phenomenon that plagues America's youth.Around the time she quit drinking, Zailckas became preoccupied with an old memory, which involved a night that she had her stomach pumped when she was 16. According to Zailckas, she had not thought about that night in a number of years, but she suddenly could not get it out of her head. Eventually, she sat down and wrote about it. The piece later became a chapter in her book.Around the same time, Zailckas was hearing a lot in the news about “girls of her generation” and how they were drinking younger and more than all the generations of women who'd gone before them. The Harvard School of Public Health reported, between 1993 and 2001, there was a threefold increase in the number of women who reported being drunk on ten or more occasions in the previous month. Time magazine ran a cover story about female binge drinkers. Zailckas did not agree with what the psychologists and the sociologists, the clinicians and the statisticians had to say, which was: “girls today are drinking more because they’re just so damn liberated, because they’re bursting with confidence and girl power, because they believe they can match boys everywhere, including the bar.” In her own experience, the author says, she and her female friends drank largely because it was an expression of their unhappiness and lack of confidence. It occurred to Zailckas, then 23, that she could offer a younger perspective.As a writer, Zailckas says her writing is informed by memoirists Mary Karr, Nick Flynn, Tobias Wolff, as well as novelists T.C. Boyle, Jeffrey Eugenides, A.M. Homes, Richard Ford, Haruki Murakami. She's also admitted she is heavily influenced by music and song lyrics. Zailckas has been quoted as saying, "If you're a writer, there's a lot of inspiration to be found in lyrics. That's the first thing I do before I get to work in the morning: have a cup of coffee and put on a record."On September 1, 2008 Zailckas married Eamon Hamilton, singer and songwriter of the acclaimed band Brakes, whom she met on the social networking site Myspace, in Romainville, France.
I'm not convinced I've come to term with old aches as much as I've had to numb myself to them for the sake of spreading the book's message. Ultimately, I think a memoir leaves its author with more terror than comfort, more questions than closure. More than anything, I feel a growing breach between "me" and the "me" on the page. It's an occupational hazard, I guess. I feel sort of exiled from my own experiences.
2
For me, fiction-writing is about escapism. Whereas memoir-writing is about facing cold, harsh realities. I'll let you guess which one is more of a party... Naw, in reality, there are challenges to both. In memoir, there's the burden of truth. And in fiction, there's the burden of fantasy. Me, I find fiction harder. There are so many possibilities in fiction. The story can go absolutely anywhere. And that overwhelms me. That strikes fear in my timid, little heart. I like being restricted to the cage of fact, the coop of reality. Without it, I feel a certain agoraphobia.
3
All said and done, I'm reluctant to say writing 'Smashed' was cathartic. For one, I think we assign that term to women far more often than we assign it to men. All too often, men's works are deemed "literature" and women's are dismissed as "therapy."
4
I'd like to keep on writing, reading, paying rent, paying taxes, paying my debt to society. Likewise, I hope to keep traveling, keep pissing people off, keep doing things I'll live to regret.
5
I was 23 when I wrote 'Smashed.' And looking back, I was such an easy mark. I was so trusting, so naïve, so revoltingly eager-to-please. And any other publisher might have taken advantage of that - I might have found myself on my book cover, posing top-naked and passed out with my cheek on a toilet seat or something.
#
Fact
1
Her first book, Smashed was published when she was 23 years old.
2
Her favorite writers include: Mary Karr, Nick Flynn, Tobias Wolff, T.C. Boyle, Jeff Eugenides, A.M. Homes, Richard Ford, Haruki Murakami, and Amy Hemple.
3
Graduate of Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton, Massachusetts.
4
Her husband is singer and songwriter of the acclaimed band Brakes.
5
Graduate of Syracuse University.
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
20/20
2012
TV Series documentary
Herself - Author (segment "Blackout Parties and Beyond")
The View
2005
TV Series
Herself
Known for movies
20/20 2012 as Herself - Author (segment "Blackout Parties and Beyond")
$100,000
