Product Description

'Here I am, a fucked, crazy, anorexic-alcoholic-childless, beautiful woman. I never dreamt it would be like this. 'Tracey Emin's "Strangeland" is her own space, lying between the Margate of her childhood, the Turkey of her forefathers and her own, private-public life in present-day London. Her writings, a combination of memoirs and confessions, are deeply intimate, yet powerfully engaging. Tracey retains a profoundly romantic world view, paired with an uncompromising honesty. Her capacity both to create controversies and to strike chords is unequalled in British life. It is a remarkable book - and an original, beautiful mind.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38468 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-17
• Released on: 2005-10-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
'Emin retains a profoundly romantic world view, paired with an uncompromising honesty ... A remarkable book - and a beautiful mind.' -- Croydon Advertiser 'A fantastically engaging storyteller...Emin is heartbreaking ... but she's also effortlessly funny ... This book is a reminder of why so many people respond with their hearts to her work.' -- Metro 'It took me by surprise with its incredibly upfront yet poignant portrait of Tracey's life. No pretension, no primadonna hysterics - just a beautifully crafted and brutally honest exploration of her world. It blew me away.' -- Hugo Hutchison, Marketing 'Reading STRANGELAND is like drinking a bottle of vodka with Tracey and listening to her talk, with real honesty, about everything. I am not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting her warmth, wit and humour. It really is wonderful.' -- Louise Sherwin-Stark, Sales 'It took me totally by surprise - her ability as a writer, the mixture of styles, the brutal honesty of it all. It feels as if it has been stripped of all superfluous material and we're left with only those moments of her life that Tracey feels are defining and important.' -- Brett Woods, Production

Marie Claire
‘As spare and poignant as one of Emin’s line drawings…A reminder of why so many people respond with their hearts’

The Times
‘A fantastically engaging storyteller…heartbreaking…effortlessly funny’

Customer Reviews

Strangeland
I enjoyed Tracey Emin's Strangeland. It had the best advice on how to make a fishfinger sandwich and the practicalities of preventing an unwanted pregnancy that I have read. Her description of loneliness and how lonely people always look at the sky struck a chord with me. In fact she describes the sky in many of the extracts which her book is made up of. I think most visual people are fixated by the sky. Her description of her behaviour before her period arrives was comical, it was so true to life. I think may women go through similar bizarre behaviour patterns and look back three days later and think was that me?
She doesn't write about her art but I suspect this is the background to a future novel about her art which she is not yet prepared to write. Perhaps she is superstitious about this and doesn't want to lose her touch. I look forward to it when she writes it.

Wow a Rollercoaster
I am still reeling from TE's book.

She and I are the same age and her description of the Margate of her youth could have been my town in the same era - music, boys, underage sex and drinking. Also, as a mother of boy/girl twins, I understand the way she describes her relationship with Paul which is at once accurate and shocking in its frankness.

Although in places her writing was erratic and confusing; this is acceptable when put in context - the book is a collection of writing she has laid down through the years. That aside, there are passages containing descriptive prose that is both poigniant and beautiful. Let's face it, would anyone expect a book by Tracey Emin to be a 'comfortable' bedtime read? She is honest, open, and tells it how it was/is.

It is a great insight into the life of a very talented lady with experiences that most of us couldn't begin to imagine. An inspired, artistic mind driven to the edge by its creativity.

God preserve Ms Emin and thanks for an uncomfortable, thought-provoking read!

Welcome to Tracey's strange world
The artist Tracey Emin became a household name after exhibiting such controversial works as 'Everyone I have Ever Slept With' (a tent covered with the names of the people she had slept with), and 'My Bed' (an unmade bed that she had slept in). Shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999, Emin was one of a new wave of British artists that emerged during the late 1990s, along with Damien Hirst, Gillian Wearing and Sarah Lucas

But this book is not about Tracey Emin the artist. It is about Tracey, the girl from Margate. About her unconventional childhood growing-up with her twin brother Paul, and her close relationship with her parents. Her yearning to love and to hold a child of her own, but at the same time realising that a lifestyle of parties, 'biting on the pillow' and vodka would make her an 'unfit' mother.

Strangeland is a recollection of lovers, drinking, sex and abortions. It invites us into Tracey's world, in the same way that much of her art does, and like her art this book is brutally honest. The book reveals the person behind the media hype, and tells us so much more about Tracey than any Emin biography ever could.