Praise for Holler Rat

“[A] searing debut memoir. . . Liftig vividly explains her struggle to reconcile her identities and sheds light on family tensions . . . Readers put off by the sermonizing of Hillbilly Elegy may find this glimpse at Appalachia more illuminating.”
Publishers Weekly

“Liftig tackles a lot of compelling material in this memoir: her early childhood, her family history, her time at Yale, her artistic career, infertility struggles, and a failed marriage. But what stands out is her exploration of Ganderbill, how her mother’s family is tied to this land, her mother’s experiences as the one who left to pursue higher education, and Liftig’s own connection to the holler and her mother’s family.”
Booklist

“A descendant of Dorothy Allison's Bastard out of Carolina and Just Kids, Anya Liftig's Holler Rat is a joyful and urgent look at how to claim a life as an artist when such choices seem unimaginable to the people who made you as well as how to bring together the parts of yourself that seem in irreconcilable contradiction.”
Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of The Third Rainbow Girl

“Underneath the many pleasures Liftig offers in this, her portrait of becoming an artist, runs a river of calamity. Her descriptions of her performances are electric and wild, and her descriptions of Kentucky are deeply felt and hilarious.”
Nick Flynn, author of The Reenactments and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

About the Author

A writer and artist, Anya Liftig has had her creative work exhibited at Tate Modern and MoMA, and she has curated events at The Kitchen, the Center for Performance Research, and the Queens Museum. She lives in Connecticut. Holler Rat is her first book.

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