The Girls Of Usually

Lori Horvitz grew up ashamed of her Eastern European Jewish roots, confused about her sexuality, and idolizing the “shiksa in her living room,” a blonde all-American girl whose photo came in a double frame and was displayed next to a family photo from a bar mitzvah. Unable to join the “happy blonde families,” she becomes a “hippie chick” who travels the world in search of … something. The Girls of Usually chronicles each trip, each romance, each experiment in reinventing herself that draws her closer to discovering the secret door through which she can escape from deep-rooted patterns and accept her own cultural, ethnic, and sexual identity.

Praise & Reviews

“Reading Lori Horvitz’s The Girls of Usually feels like calling up an old friend and talking late into the night. Deeply intimate and wickedly funny, these are essays to be treasured.”
—Stephanie Elizondo Griest, author of Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana 

“These smart, witty, and heartbreaking essays are pure magic and Lori Horvitz is, truly, a magician of the form.”
—Lee Ann Roripaugh, author of Dandarians

“Horvitz writes with a fine balance of wit and poignancy, deftly delivering her stories in a way that feels both personal and universal. The Girls of Usually is a read that stays with you—unsettling, complicated, and wholly rewarding.”
—Artis Henderson, author of Unremarried Widow