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Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhood
Drawing on her peripatetic childhood as the daughter of a travelling salesman, and her adult residence in one of Atlanta's seedier crack neighbourhoods, columnist and NPR commentator Hollis Gillespie has assembled a comic, poignant memoir about her life, starring her unusual family and her crazy friends.
NPR commentator Hollis Gillespie's outrageously funny–and equally heartbreaking–collection of autobiographical tales chronicles her journey through self–reckoning and the worst neighbourhoods in Atlanta in search of a home she can call her own. The daughter of a missile scientist and an alcoholic travelling trailer salesman, Gillespie was nine before she realized not everybody's mother made bombs, and thirty before she realized it was possible to live in one place longer than a six–month lease allows. Supporting her are the social outcasts she calls her best Daniel, a talented and eccentric artist; Grant, who makes his living peddling folk art by a denounced nun who paints plywood signs with twisted evangelical sayings; and Lary, who often, out of compassion, offers to shoot her like a lame horse.
Hollis's friends help her battle the mess of obstacles that stand in her way–including her warped childhood, in which her parents moved her and her siblings around the country like carnival barkers, chasing missile–building contracts and other whimsies, such as her father's dream to patent and sell door–to–door the world's most wondrous key–chain. A past like this will make you doubt you'll ever have a future, much less roots. Miraculously, though, Gillespie manages to plant exactly roots, as wrested and dubious as they are.
As Gillespie says, "Life is too damn short to remain trapped in your own Alcatraz." Follow her on this wickedly funny journey as she manages to escape again and again.
NPR commentator Hollis Gillespie's outrageously funny–and equally heartbreaking–collection of autobiographical tales chronicles her journey through self–reckoning and the worst neighbourhoods in Atlanta in search of a home she can call her own. The daughter of a missile scientist and an alcoholic travelling trailer salesman, Gillespie was nine before she realized not everybody's mother made bombs, and thirty before she realized it was possible to live in one place longer than a six–month lease allows. Supporting her are the social outcasts she calls her best Daniel, a talented and eccentric artist; Grant, who makes his living peddling folk art by a denounced nun who paints plywood signs with twisted evangelical sayings; and Lary, who often, out of compassion, offers to shoot her like a lame horse.
Hollis's friends help her battle the mess of obstacles that stand in her way–including her warped childhood, in which her parents moved her and her siblings around the country like carnival barkers, chasing missile–building contracts and other whimsies, such as her father's dream to patent and sell door–to–door the world's most wondrous key–chain. A past like this will make you doubt you'll ever have a future, much less roots. Miraculously, though, Gillespie manages to plant exactly roots, as wrested and dubious as they are.
As Gillespie says, "Life is too damn short to remain trapped in your own Alcatraz." Follow her on this wickedly funny journey as she manages to escape again and again.
300 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2004
13 people are currently reading
1607 people want to read
About the author
Hollis Gillespie
13 books64 followersHollis Gillespie is a humorist, syndicated columnist, NPR commentator and top-selling author. Her column can be found monthly on the back page of every issue of Atlanta magazine.
Hollis has appeared on the cover of numerous publications including Atlanta magazine, Creative Loafing and Tampa’s Weekly Planet. She has been profiled in Marie Claire, Bust, Writer’s Digest and Entertainment Weekly.
Her television appearances include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, TBS Storyline, Monica Kaufman’s Closeups, Good Day Atlanta, and an upcoming appearance on TV Land. Her radio commentaries appear regularly on National Public Radio (NPR) and Georgia Public Broadcasting.
In 2004, Writer’s Digest named Hollis Gillespie a “Breakout Author of the Year.” Other accolades include “Best Columnist” (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) and “Best Local Author” (2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009) honors in the Creative Loafing Best of Atlanta Readers Survey. Atlanta magazine awarded her “Best ‘Tell-All’” in 2006.
The film rights to her first book, Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhod, are currently under option with a major Hollywood studio.
Hollis has appeared on the cover of numerous publications including Atlanta magazine, Creative Loafing and Tampa’s Weekly Planet. She has been profiled in Marie Claire, Bust, Writer’s Digest and Entertainment Weekly.
Her television appearances include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, TBS Storyline, Monica Kaufman’s Closeups, Good Day Atlanta, and an upcoming appearance on TV Land. Her radio commentaries appear regularly on National Public Radio (NPR) and Georgia Public Broadcasting.
In 2004, Writer’s Digest named Hollis Gillespie a “Breakout Author of the Year.” Other accolades include “Best Columnist” (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) and “Best Local Author” (2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009) honors in the Creative Loafing Best of Atlanta Readers Survey. Atlanta magazine awarded her “Best ‘Tell-All’” in 2006.
The film rights to her first book, Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhod, are currently under option with a major Hollywood studio.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 118 reviews
December 23, 2008
This is a book of essays, so I kept reading it, hoping some of the later essays would be better. They weren't.
The essays about the author's childhood were ok. I have an obsession with reading about families more messed up than mine was. Her family was fairly messed up, and the stories about growing up were more or less entertaining.
The later essays, the ones about the author and her friends gentrifying a poor neighborhood in Atlanta and talking disparengingly about the people who lived there before them, really irked me. Really, if a neighborhood is too scary to live in, don't buy a house there just because it's cheap. If there's no resturaunt in the neighborhood and the closest Starbucks is six minutes away, dont' buy a house there. It seems pretty simple to me.
I think these essays were supposed to be "gritty," but I thought they were mostly just pathetic.
I will NOT be reading the sequal where the author reproduces, even though I have already borrowed it from the library and it's lying on my bedroom floor. I am removing it from my to-read list right now.
The essays about the author's childhood were ok. I have an obsession with reading about families more messed up than mine was. Her family was fairly messed up, and the stories about growing up were more or less entertaining.
The later essays, the ones about the author and her friends gentrifying a poor neighborhood in Atlanta and talking disparengingly about the people who lived there before them, really irked me. Really, if a neighborhood is too scary to live in, don't buy a house there just because it's cheap. If there's no resturaunt in the neighborhood and the closest Starbucks is six minutes away, dont' buy a house there. It seems pretty simple to me.
I think these essays were supposed to be "gritty," but I thought they were mostly just pathetic.
I will NOT be reading the sequal where the author reproduces, even though I have already borrowed it from the library and it's lying on my bedroom floor. I am removing it from my to-read list right now.
March 19, 2015
Don't stare too hard at the rating. I didn't think this was bad book at all. In fact, if I step back from how difficult a time I had reading it, and how long it took me to slog through, I have a lot of praise for it. But it was one of those books where the writing style just did not match up with my brain in a way that I could get into rhythm reading it. The very, very short essays that tended to begin with a pithy statement before moving into a vaguely-related anecdote wore on me very quickly. It's hard for me to read a collection of very short things in the first place, but the amount of work it took my brain to figure out what a chapter would be about meant just as I was getting into it, it was over.
But: Gillespie is a clever and funny writer, and there's a lot of great stuff in here if tiny elliptical essays are your thing.
For me, not so much. Like I said, don't stare too hard at the rating.
But: Gillespie is a clever and funny writer, and there's a lot of great stuff in here if tiny elliptical essays are your thing.
For me, not so much. Like I said, don't stare too hard at the rating.
January 31, 2008
As you can tell from the title, Gillespie does not mince her words. She's brash and opinionated, and kind of a lost soul with whom a lot of us can really identify. The daughter of an "alcoholic trailer salesman" and a woman who wanted to be a beautician but had to settle for being a rocket scientist, Gillespie had an unstable childhood, during which she called a lot of places home and witnessed the eventual failure of her parents' marriage. She eventually settles in Atlanta, GA, where she meets a colorful group of friends that become her surrogate family.
It's written in a very blunt, confessional style, and consists of short essays that are really more in the style of blog posts or the like. It seemed that she didn't originally intend to write a collection specifically for publication- there's a lot of repetition throughout several of her stories- but it's pretty easy to look past the lack of polish. In fact, that seems to be the *point.*
I'm a big fan of Gillespie's, and I'd recommend her books to anyone who's not faint of heart. (If you're offended by strong language or occasionally crass humor, give it a miss.) She writes with a perfect balance of humor and pathos, something I aspire to (and fall short of) in my own writing. Ultimately, she's the sort of person who'd probably explode if she didn't write it all out, and she's screamingly funny and very, very real.
It's written in a very blunt, confessional style, and consists of short essays that are really more in the style of blog posts or the like. It seemed that she didn't originally intend to write a collection specifically for publication- there's a lot of repetition throughout several of her stories- but it's pretty easy to look past the lack of polish. In fact, that seems to be the *point.*
I'm a big fan of Gillespie's, and I'd recommend her books to anyone who's not faint of heart. (If you're offended by strong language or occasionally crass humor, give it a miss.) She writes with a perfect balance of humor and pathos, something I aspire to (and fall short of) in my own writing. Ultimately, she's the sort of person who'd probably explode if she didn't write it all out, and she's screamingly funny and very, very real.
October 16, 2007
Gave up after 2/3 of the way thru. There were definitely some funny moments, notably her bad foreign language translations, and her mom is pretty fascinating. But I have no patience for memoirs of people who are obsessed with drinking/partying and complaining that they are now too old to do it. And enough mentions of the time that the liquor store owner tried to molest her. Hello...editor?
March 29, 2010
I actually didn't read most of this book but what I skimmed I did not find funny. What it did do for me was remind me of an ACTUAL funny author named Laurie Notaro ( http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/... ) that I had all but forgotten about. I hope everybody will go out and read her books instead. Sorry Hellish.
May 14, 2021
*sigh* I wanted to like this one more than I did. I actually really enjoyed her humor for the most part, but the organization of the book was too choppy and all over the place for me. It felt like a bunch of short stories that was trying to be a seamless novel. And her use of the R word really made me cringe...not a fan.
September 26, 2008
again, this is sort of a memoir only it's individual stories. i just like this chick so much, i like her personality and the way she conveys things, but i also like how every so often she has a moral of the story. yep.
November 18, 2008
O.k. I'll admit that it did not make it all the way through this book. I was distracted by her name in large print on each page and her face on every other page, oh- and her life just wasn't that interesting. Sorry
June 4, 2007
Precursor to Confessions of a Recovering Slut. Again, Gillespie is a great story teller -- funny and direct -- reading her books is like talking to a good friend over drinks!
July 15, 2008
I adore Hollis Gillespie. She can really tell a great story that has you both holding the stitches in your side from laughing and blowing your nose from crying at her heartbreaks. Really great book.
February 27, 2009
Parts of it were funny, parts of it were heart felt, but overall it was only OK.
June 3, 2009
The PERFECT book for anyone who loves to travel and experience life. Great for anyone who has a couple of crazy stories of their own!
May 17, 2021
This book tried really hard to be over the top hilarious, but just ended up being irritating.
August 16, 2008
REVIEW WHILE READING:
This RAW autobiographical collection of snapshots from the author's life is both laugh-out-loud hillarious and touching at the same time. She's clever-funny, and her brand of self-depricating humor is derived from the school of hard knocks and packs a punch. I love this book because I identify so much with this everyman's author with her conversational voice. I also appreciate the fact that she's dealing with some painful issues through humor, while still showing readers that she's learning along the way ... not simply laughing.
REVIEW AFTER I READ:
When I was half-way through this book I gave it a 5, and after finishing I now rate it a 3.5. Great book, still love it, still recommend it, but the author relied too much on her edgy, raw schtick. It got a little old by the end, but I still love Hollis, and I'm going to read the sequel!
This RAW autobiographical collection of snapshots from the author's life is both laugh-out-loud hillarious and touching at the same time. She's clever-funny, and her brand of self-depricating humor is derived from the school of hard knocks and packs a punch. I love this book because I identify so much with this everyman's author with her conversational voice. I also appreciate the fact that she's dealing with some painful issues through humor, while still showing readers that she's learning along the way ... not simply laughing.
REVIEW AFTER I READ:
When I was half-way through this book I gave it a 5, and after finishing I now rate it a 3.5. Great book, still love it, still recommend it, but the author relied too much on her edgy, raw schtick. It got a little old by the end, but I still love Hollis, and I'm going to read the sequel!
July 4, 2008
This is one of my most favorite books ever! I knew the second I picked up this book, it would change me and it did. I've recommended this book to several people and they haven't necessarily understood its appeal. For me, it was finally a book that talked about things in somebody's childhood that was similar to mine. She had a crazy childhood and has experienced many interesting things as an adult. It's taken her a while to come into her own. I found it funny, poignant, touching and depraved. Many people don't like the depraved part, but I found it done in a truthful manner that wasn't sensationalized for effect. I would love to meet Hollis some day. She seems like she would be a gas.
June 6, 2008
Hilarious, inappropriate, and surprisingly, even a little sentimental.
This is a memoir told in super-short vignettes, that I've been reading in bits and pieces over the past year. I wouldn't try to sit down and read it all at once. Treat it like a column or your favorite blog, and read a few excerpts here and there.
This is a memoir told in super-short vignettes, that I've been reading in bits and pieces over the past year. I wouldn't try to sit down and read it all at once. Treat it like a column or your favorite blog, and read a few excerpts here and there.
June 14, 2007
Man, this lady is crass and funny and ultimately just a scream to read.
March 21, 2008
God bless her bleached and whorish little heart. I love Hollis. I love her scrappy, mordant style. I, too, live in the ghetto. It's the only way to go, if you're 35 and don't have kids.
August 23, 2008
The lady who wrote this lives in Atl. She is VERY funny.
January 6, 2009
Read this one a long time ago, and just pulled it back off the bookshelf. She is so funny!
July 2, 2013
This is a book I own, with the original cover. I suspect I wouldn’t have picked it up with the new cover, a bit garish for my taste. I will lend it to friends, only on occasion, and with strict instructions that it must come back to me, or I will hound them endlessly.
Why do I like this book? It is raw, gritty, rude and crass. It is also another one of those books where I laugh so hard, that I have to prop my eye open to read the next line. But let me tell you this is not a comical book. It is so much more than that. It is incredibly sad. You will be horrified at some of the revelations that Hollis shares with the reader.
It reads like a journalist had written it. Not like a diary, more along the lines of short stories, essays or vignettes of her life, all gathered together and put into a book. This results in the book being a little disjointed, but I’m ok with that. It’s not her writing style that makes me recommend the book; it’s the pain and anguish that the author wraps in a facetious kind of humor. She shares anecdotes which make me wonder how she survived to grow into someone who could function at all.
Be forewarned, most of the friends I have shared this book with, did not like it. Those who did like it have experienced the same range of emotions that I did.
Why do I like this book? It is raw, gritty, rude and crass. It is also another one of those books where I laugh so hard, that I have to prop my eye open to read the next line. But let me tell you this is not a comical book. It is so much more than that. It is incredibly sad. You will be horrified at some of the revelations that Hollis shares with the reader.
It reads like a journalist had written it. Not like a diary, more along the lines of short stories, essays or vignettes of her life, all gathered together and put into a book. This results in the book being a little disjointed, but I’m ok with that. It’s not her writing style that makes me recommend the book; it’s the pain and anguish that the author wraps in a facetious kind of humor. She shares anecdotes which make me wonder how she survived to grow into someone who could function at all.
Be forewarned, most of the friends I have shared this book with, did not like it. Those who did like it have experienced the same range of emotions that I did.
January 18, 2014
I was given this as a housewarming present by friends when I bought my first house. That house happened to be in a bad neighborhood, so the book title was fitting. I started reading this at the end of my first, exhausting week of renovation. As I sat on my sofa with my bottle of wine, laughing hysterically at the implausibilities of Hollis' life, I found myself reading a description of her friends Grants' crack house in the hood. The one with the jar of human teeth that he found. The one that seemed to be describing my house. My crack house in the hood that I had just bought. In my drunken stupor, I opened my email, found Hollis' email address and asked her some rather pointed questions about the house she described. In particular, I asked if Grants house had a set of hot pink French doors with the phrase "Hell is Hot" painted on one, and the phrase "Stealing=Sin=Hell" on the other. Hollis, also apparently drunk and in her computer, emailed me back immediately exclaiming "You bought Grants' crack house! I have to introduce you!". And this is how I met Hollis Gillespie and Grant Henry and why I will always love this book.
August 15, 2009
Holli's stories make you laugh, cry, think back on those parts of your life that are the memories and the pains.
Funny part. As a child she was sent outside to fetch the dog:
I did not know, nor should I have, that dogs get stuck when they're doing it, because it's part of their whole procreation process. So I could not separate them, and the most I could do was turn the mutt around so he was facing the other way and not actually on top of Bonnie. But all that accomplished was to turn them into a freakish set of whining Siamese dog twins fused at the ass..
So the only thing I could do at that point was to sit on the curb beside them and commence wailing. I mean, here my Bonnie was stuck to another dog, probably permanently as far as I knew, and now I'd have to bring this mutant double-dog monster back home and try to explain it to my father.
Funny part. As a child she was sent outside to fetch the dog:
I did not know, nor should I have, that dogs get stuck when they're doing it, because it's part of their whole procreation process. So I could not separate them, and the most I could do was turn the mutt around so he was facing the other way and not actually on top of Bonnie. But all that accomplished was to turn them into a freakish set of whining Siamese dog twins fused at the ass..
So the only thing I could do at that point was to sit on the curb beside them and commence wailing. I mean, here my Bonnie was stuck to another dog, probably permanently as far as I knew, and now I'd have to bring this mutant double-dog monster back home and try to explain it to my father.
December 30, 2007
Considering how much I like blogs, you'd think i'd like this book more, since it's really a series of "posts", most just a couple of pages in length, telling a variety of clever anecdotes about Gillespie's life.
But I found it a bit tedious after a while and started skimming through the stories to hasten my way to the final page. Lightweight stories such as these are perhaps better suited for the online medium...where you can skip around easily, where comments can provide an opportunity for conversation, where there's more context and chronology.
This book only confirmed the fact that I am NOT one of those people who can't wait for the next David Sedaris essay collection :)
Full review in my blog:
http://homepage.mac.com/elisa_camahor...
But I found it a bit tedious after a while and started skimming through the stories to hasten my way to the final page. Lightweight stories such as these are perhaps better suited for the online medium...where you can skip around easily, where comments can provide an opportunity for conversation, where there's more context and chronology.
This book only confirmed the fact that I am NOT one of those people who can't wait for the next David Sedaris essay collection :)
Full review in my blog:
http://homepage.mac.com/elisa_camahor...
August 14, 2014
Gillespie's memoir is structured as a series of short (3-5 page) essays (likely collected from Gillespie's past columns in various publications), with the shaken thread of Gillespie's current, precariously adult, life as the jumping off point that leads into a dark, but darkly humorous, upbringing as one of four children of a drunken traveling mobile home salesman and his rocket scientist who would rather have been a cosmetologist wife, and usually returning to bring some sort of shaky insight out of the combination of the two. The format, and the poignant humor, both work for the most part, although it would have been nice to have edited out the nearly-identical references to the same background material that appear over and over again. Still, I'll be looking for Gillespie's other work.
September 22, 2015
This book is such a royal pain in the ass- you have no idea. HOW hard is she trying to be just so cool and just so hip and just so royal pain in the ass stupid? I swear to God had Emily Post written a book on how to be cool this would've been it. It isn't funny, it isn't entertaining. It's a whole lot of hot air blowing God knows where.
Who cares?Who cares that she has cool and groovy friends? I sure as hell don't. They are all TRYING so hard.
to be hip- to be cool - here it comes-to be IRREVERENT.Why do I get the feeling that when no one is looking they all secretly want to be insurance salesmen? Would've made for a better story.Stupid stupid book.Dull. vapid and completely useless.Don't read it. JM
Who cares?Who cares that she has cool and groovy friends? I sure as hell don't. They are all TRYING so hard.
to be hip- to be cool - here it comes-to be IRREVERENT.Why do I get the feeling that when no one is looking they all secretly want to be insurance salesmen? Would've made for a better story.Stupid stupid book.Dull. vapid and completely useless.Don't read it. JM
August 6, 2008
Pretty good. Funny in parts and the chapters are very short (like you could read in a less than 5 minutes which is nice). When she ended some chapters it felt a little forced - like she wanted to wrap it all up and be poignant but it felt a little..well, like I said forced. I love some of her imagery and all-in-all found the book entertaining and funny and a little sad (especially her dad). I have her other book on hold at the library so it's at least good enough for me to give another crack at her :-)
January 30, 2012
I wanted to like this book more than I did. I like Hollis Gillespie, and I know a lot of the people and places she writes about in this book, but the structure of it was very annoying. The shortness of the essays wasn't the problem, it was the way they all started to sound the same after a while: begin with a startling statement, then move into an anecdote, then somehow connect that to her messed-up family life. Most of the essays ended up very abruptly and felt like they'd been edited for space, which is okay for a column, but not for a book where there's plenty of space.
June 5, 2009
i really wanted this book to be amazing and it just wasn't. was she funny, at times, yes. it was a quick and easy read but definitely not as funny as her title was.
i did love that she lived in so. cal and atlanta- my two favorite places. i knew all of the places she was talking about and that was great. she's also a flight attendant and i would've loved to have read some of those stories.
i'll still probably read her other stuff, but im in no rush.
i did love that she lived in so. cal and atlanta- my two favorite places. i knew all of the places she was talking about and that was great. she's also a flight attendant and i would've loved to have read some of those stories.
i'll still probably read her other stuff, but im in no rush.
December 14, 2016
3.5 stars
Displaying 1 - 30 of 118 reviews