Confessions of a Recovering Slut (30 page)

The following people also remain in my gratitude: Liz Lapidus, Josh Levs, Kathy Jett, Jesse Chamberlin, Sherrie Cash, Matt Barrineau, Marcia Wood, Tom Junod, Karyn Slaughter, Jim Hackler, Mary Rose Kelly, Julie Bookman, Michael Benoit, Teresia Mosher, Sarah Rosenberg, Lynn Lamousin, Corinne Lynch, Laura Geraci, Thomas Meagher, Nena Halford, Gina Speakmon, Jim Llewellyn, Anna Llewellyn, Lucky Yates, Bob and Lu Steed, Corinne Lynch, Michael Alvear, Randy Osborne, Polly Sheppard, Samuel Johnson, and, most importantly, the readers of my columns and books and my listeners on NPR.

Lastly, I’m so very thankful to my former neighbors of Capitol View, among them Miss Taylor, Monty and Greta DeMayo, Muggs DeMayo, and especially Todd Kitchens, Honnie Goode, and her mother Bren. Their grace and dignity beautified the surroundings in a way that resonates to this day. Today the place is downright lovely.

About the Author

Photo by Jesse Chamberlin

HOLLIS GILLESPIE
, a
Writer
’s
Digest
Breakout Author of the Year, is a regular commentator on NPR’s
All Things Considered
, the award-winning writer of “Mood Swing,” a humor column published in
Creative Loafing
, Atlanta’s major alternative weekly, and author of "The Ugly American," a travel column for
Paste
magazine. Also the author of
Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch
, which
Vanity Fair
called “rib-crackingly funny,” she lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with two cats, an incontinent pit bull, and her six-year-old daughter.

www.hollisgillespie.com

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www.AuthorTracker.com
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Praise
for
Confessions of a Recovering Slut

“Gillespie’s profound observations about suffering and love sneak up on you at the very last second, buried as sly rewards for the careful reader.”

—
New York Post

“Entertaining.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Gillespie masterfully mines her childhood, work travails, and misadventure for laugh-out-loud humor and eye-moistening pathos.”

—
Bust

“A bleakly comic masterpiece.”

—
Dallas Morning News

“Instantly relatable. . . . Beautiful beyond words.”

—
Orlando Weekly

Also by Hollis Gillespie

Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhood

Copyright

C
ONFESSIONS OF A RECOVERING SLUT.
Copyright © 2005 by Hollis Gillespie. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Gillespie, Hollis.

Confessions of a recovering slut and other love stories / Hollis

Gillespie.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-06-056207-2 (acid-free paper)

1. Gillespie, Hollis. 2. Journalists—United States—Biography.

I. Title: Half title : Confessions of a recovering slut. II. Title.

PN4874.G385A3 2005

070.92—dc22

[B]

2005046486