17 Dresses

By Pamela Klein

In the generation shortly before eating disorders are diagnosed and treated, Paulette quietly starves, heaves and cuts herself. Built like a '50s pin-up girl with a pleading pout, she detests herself and even though she lives for beauty, she cannot see her own. She takes sanctuary in the secondhand dresses scored in thrift and vintage shops, a world of storied fabrics and a beacon for something meaningful beyond the California ideal that surrounds and often suffocates her. At 15, Paulette is a rocket heading straight into mid 1970's space. She has so little guidance and yet quite a lot of good fortune. Luckily she has a grandmother who relates to Paulette in the language of old clothing. And then there is her on-again, off-again romance with the semiotician Benjamin, who unzips more than a figure of speech. Over the course of seventeen years and seventeen vintage dresses, each frock tells a delicate tale, uttering significance and inspiring Paulette's transformation from girl, to gal to grown. Part coming of age, part homage to the rousing world of vintage, 17 Dresses is a haute and haunting glance at the suffering that comes from not wanting to "fit in" to anything but that venerable dress in the window.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0990696693
• ISBN13: 9780990696698
• Release Date: October 2018
• Publisher: Padaro Press
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"