The Beautifully Worthless (City Lights/Sister Spit)

by Ali Liebegott

Winner of the 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Debut Lesbian Fiction. "The Beautifully Worthless is an outrageous act of kindness."--Eileen Myles "She's insanely talented, it's mad. The Beautifully Worthless crisscrosses the USA, like Close to the Knives, like Kerouac, desperately seeking out everything occluded and driven, a frenzy of seeking frozen into poetry."--Kevin Killian "Ali Liebegott's books evoke a life-affirming sensation that comes from embracing the pendular. Her ability to hit the right tone is scientific, almost violent in its precision--a single word or observation, well-placed, can have a reader crying or laughing aloud."--Evan Karp, Bomb Magazine A runaway waitress leaves her lover, grabs her dog, and hits the highway. Ali Liebegott maps her travels in a series of hilarious and heartbreaking letters to the girl she left behind, and some of the most exquisite poetry written about love, heartache, and madness.

• ISBN10: 0872865711
• ISBN13: 9780872865716
• Publish Date: 18 April 2013 (first published 1 February 2005)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: City Lights Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 136
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

3.5*

This was an audiobook I picked up on a whim not knowing what it was about.

As it turns out, The Beautifully Worthless is a work of poetic fiction that describes a road trip in letters to the protagonist's girlfriend.

Unsatisfied with her life the protagonist sets out with her dog to find a town in Idaho that she has read about. On the way she ponders about her life, her expectations, her interaction with others. It's a melancholy description of her experiences and her anxieties.

If I had known what the book was about, I probably would not have picked it up. However, I was pleasantly surprised by it. In parts it reminded me of Kerouac and Ginsberg - but not in a way that describes similarity between Liebegott's work and that of the two Beats. I've never been able to get into Ginsburg. He always seemed too pompous to me. And Kerouac seemed too self-indulgent. No, the link I struck between those two and Liebegott's book was one of difference: I wish Kerouac and Ginsberg had written with the same warmth and flair as Liebegott.

Anyway, I'm curious to read another of her books.