HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side

by Rayya Elias

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
484533,775 (2.92)1
'She's experienced wealth, cultural alienation, homelessness, brushes with fame, prison, rehab, record deals, a million blown second chances, a dozen broken hearts and one bloody-knuckled ultimate spiritual redemption. She even died once in the process, and may very well have had sex with your wife back in the eighties...' Elizabeth Gilbert When she was seven, Rayya Elias and her upper-class family fled the political conflict in their native Syria, settling in a suburb of Detroit. Bullied in school and caught between the world of her traditional family and her tough American classmates, she rebelled early. Rayya moved to New York City to become a musician and kept herself afloat with an uncommon talent for cutting hair. At the height of the punk movement, life on the Lower East Side was full of adventure, creative inspiration and temptation. Eventually though, Elias's passionate affairs with lovers of both sexes went awry, her (more than) occasional drug use turned to addiction and she found herself living on the streets - between visits to jail. Told with a keen sense of humour and a lack of self-pity in even the most harrowing situations, Harley Loco is a memoir about jumping in head-first, no questions asked. It's a book about living in the moment no matter what that might bring, and about pursuing, not always by choice, a life of extremes - highs and lows, pain and passion - until ultimately arriving at a place of contentment and peace.… (more)
None
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 1 mention

Showing 4 of 4
Maybe 3.5 stars. Parts of this book were great. I started it after reading The Chronology of Water and after the prologue thought this would be strong and tough in the same way. In parts--like the prologue--it is but often I felt like Elias was "telling not showing". ( )
  CydMelcher | Feb 5, 2016 |
Maybe 3.5 stars. Parts of this book were great. I started it after reading The Chronology of Water and after the prologue thought this would be strong and tough in the same way. In parts--like the prologue--it is but often I felt like Elias was "telling not showing". ( )
  CydMelcher | Feb 5, 2016 |
Maybe 3.5 stars. Parts of this book were great. I started it after reading The Chronology of Water and after the prologue thought this would be strong and tough in the same way. In parts--like the prologue--it is but often I felt like Elias was "telling not showing". ( )
  CydMelcher | Feb 5, 2016 |
This is a memoir by a woman born in Syria, raised in Detroit, and educated on the streets of 1980s New York City. She is a hairdresser, a musician, a lesbian, a drug addict. Elias's descriptions of her life are completely unflinching: her talents as a stylist and musician are devoid of any humility, but her moments of weakness and crimes against her loved ones are presented without any excuses or pleas for sympathy. Her world is one of her own making, for better or for worse. I would have appreciated more physical description of the world she lived in, so I could really picture it, but Elias is clearly not that kind of writer. Photographs would have been nice too. All the same, this was an interesting portrait of a life so completely unlike mine, and a good cautionary tale about drug use. ( )
  melydia | May 6, 2013 |
Showing 4 of 4
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

'She's experienced wealth, cultural alienation, homelessness, brushes with fame, prison, rehab, record deals, a million blown second chances, a dozen broken hearts and one bloody-knuckled ultimate spiritual redemption. She even died once in the process, and may very well have had sex with your wife back in the eighties...' Elizabeth Gilbert When she was seven, Rayya Elias and her upper-class family fled the political conflict in their native Syria, settling in a suburb of Detroit. Bullied in school and caught between the world of her traditional family and her tough American classmates, she rebelled early. Rayya moved to New York City to become a musician and kept herself afloat with an uncommon talent for cutting hair. At the height of the punk movement, life on the Lower East Side was full of adventure, creative inspiration and temptation. Eventually though, Elias's passionate affairs with lovers of both sexes went awry, her (more than) occasional drug use turned to addiction and she found herself living on the streets - between visits to jail. Told with a keen sense of humour and a lack of self-pity in even the most harrowing situations, Harley Loco is a memoir about jumping in head-first, no questions asked. It's a book about living in the moment no matter what that might bring, and about pursuing, not always by choice, a life of extremes - highs and lows, pain and passion - until ultimately arriving at a place of contentment and peace.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (2.92)
0.5
1
1.5 1
2 1
2.5
3 3
3.5
4
4.5
5 1

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 205,869,362 books! | Top bar: Always visible