The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt

About this book

The vibrant funny and heartwarming story of an outcast who becomes an odd man in If you have ever felt like a misfit in school or been paralyzed by your familys imposing expectations if you have ever obsessed about your appearance or panicked about choosing a career path if you have ever wondered if every single thing to which your body is exposed from egg yolks to X-rays might harm you then you may be surprised to find a kindred spirit in The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt. Growing up in sunny La Jolla California Jon-Jon Goulian was a hyperneurotic kid who felt out of place wherever he turned and who in his own words was forever on the verge of caving in beneath the pressures of modern life. From his fear of competition to his fear of pimples from his fear of sex to his fear of saturated fat the range and depth of Jon-Jons phobias were seemingly boundless. With his two older brothers providing a sterling example he believed he could never live up to and his stern grandfather the political philosopher Sidney Hook continually calling him to account for his intellectual failure Jon-Jon feeling pressed against the wall wracked with despair and dizzy with insecurity instinctively resorted for reasons that became clear to him only many years later to a most ingenious scheme for keeping conventional expectations at bay: womens clothing! Ingenious perhaps but woefully ineffective as Jon-Jon discovers again and again that behind his skirt leggings halter top and high heels hes still as wildly neurotic and as wracked with anxiety as hes always been. In this hilarious and heartfelt memoir Jon-Jon Goulians witty and exuberant voice shines through as he comes to terms with what it means to truly be yourself.