Compare If You're a Girl, revised and expanded edition

Ann Rower’s first book, published by Semiotext(e)’s Native Agents series in 1991 in tandem with Cookie Mueller’s , cemented her reputation as the Eve Babitz of lower Manhattan. Rower was fifty-three years old at the time. Her stories—urtexts of female autofiction—had long been circulating within the poetry and postpunk music scenes. They were unlike anyone else’s: disarming, embarrassing, psuedoconfessional tales of everyday life dizzily told and laced with dry humor. In , she recounts her adventures as Timothy Leary’s babysitter, her artistic romance with actor Ron Vawter, and her attempts to evade a schizophrenic stalker. Rower went on to publish two novels: (1995) and (2002). After the 2002 suicide of her partner, the writer Heather Lewis, Rower stopped writing for almost two decades. And then she picked up where left off. No longer a girl, she produced dozens of stories from her life in New York as an octogenarian. This new, expanded edition includes most of the original book, together with selections from both her novels and her recent writings. is a trailblazing book that manifests Rower’s influence on a generation of writers, and proves that mature reflection needn’t be lacking in attitude.