Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self

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When Lori Gottlieb was 11 years old, she did something girls that age often do: She started a diary. And like far too many other 11-year-old girls, she also began starving herself. Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self chronicles her transformation from a bright, healthy kid into a hospital patient on the verge of death, and it illustrates how a young girl can become convinced that anorexia is the answer to her preadolescent confusion.

With an edgy wit and keenly observant eye, Stick Figure delivers an engrossing glimpse into the mind of a girl in transition to adulthood. Fortunately, the 11-year-old Lori recorded her journey to recovery in her diary, and her story is funny, slyly insightful, and surprisingly universal. An unflinchingly candid, bitingly funny debut, Stick Figure's compelling mix of irreverent humor, satire and autobiography offers dead-on observances about everything from mothers to the medical profession, gender roles to the absurdities of society's obsession with beauty.

Martin Scorsese's company, DeFina/Cappa Productions, has purchased movie rights to Gottlieb's journal.
In the image-conscious world of 1970s Beverly Hills, 11-year-old Lori knows she's different. Instead of trading clothes and dreaming of teen idols like most of her pre-adolescent friends, Lori prefers reading books, writing in her journal and making up her own creative homework assignments.

Chronically disapproving of her parents' shallow lifestyle, she challenges their authority and chafes under their constant demands to curb her frank opinions and act more "ladylike." Feeling as though she has lost control over her rapidly changing world, Lori focuses all her concentration on one subject: dieting.

Her life narrows to a single goal--to be "...the thinnest eleven year old on the entire planet." But once she achieves her "stick figure," Lori really sees herself for the first time in a restaurant bathroom mirror and decides then and there to bring herself back from the brink of starvation. Stick Figure is a surprisingly upbeat memoir, mainly due to Gottlieb's descriptions of her upper-crust parents: "Mom and I usually don't like the same movies.

For example, she didn't like my favorite movie, Star Wars, probably because no one goes shopping...." But despite the sly humor, Lori comes to a sobering conclusion that is, sadly, still relevant today: "...you can be too thin and not even know it, because you spend so much time listening to everyone talk about how ladies are supposed to diet, and how something's wrong with you if you aren't worried about being thin, too." Culled from Gottlieb's pre-teen diaries, Stick Figure is a wry and engaging observation of an eating disorder and the society that contributed to it. --Jennifer Hubert