The acclaimed and groundbreaking memoir from Wendy C. Ortiz
A darkly vibrant and daring memoir, Wendy C. Ortiz's Excavation challenged the standard telling of abuse narratives when first published in 2014 over a decade later, it remains deeply prescient. Set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley in the late 1980s, the narrative follows the spiraling entanglement between Wendy and her eighth-grade English teacher as she becomes both victim to and participant in a simultaneously predatorial and impassioned relationship. Baited by initial praise and a false sense of control, Wendy tumbles into a dangerous dynamic that spans the duration of her teens. Artfully constructed from her own journals and decades of personal excavation, the story of this secret relationship has imprinted on Wendy and readers alike. A stunningly honest look at memory, agency, and power, Excavation will claim your whole heart.
Table of Contents:
Author's Note
98
September 98
Fall 98
November 9, 98
Notes on an Excavation: Opportunity School 2 2-2 4
98
985- 98
November 98
Notes on an Excavation: Any Given Day
November 98
December 98
1987
1987
Home 1987
Early 1987
March 1987
April 1987
May 1987
1987
June 1987
July 1987
Summer 1987
Notes on an Excavation: 1995
Summer 1987
August 1987
Notes on an Excavation: Why I Didn't Tell
September 1987
Fall 1987
Late Fall 1987
Notes on an Excavation: 1993-2
October 1987
Fall 1987
Notes on an Excavation: Tools, 2 2
Notes on an Excavation: Family, 1987
1988
January 1988
Spring 1988
Summer 1988
Fall 1988
Fall and Winter 1988
1989
1989
Early June 1989
Early Summer 1989
Summer 1989
Notes on an Excavation: Exorcism
Late Summer 1989
September 1989
Fall 1989
Notes on an Excavation: 2 7-2
1999
1999
99
Summer 99
Fall 99
Late Fall 99
Notes on an Excavation: Present Day Finds
Acknowledgments
About the Author :
Wendy C. Ortiz is a writer of creative nonfiction who works in hybrid forms, essays, and memoir. She is the author of three books, all published by Northwestern University Press. Her writing has appeared in BOMB Magazine online, Joyland, The New York Times, Pleiades, Fence, and many other journals. Ortiz is a therapist in private practice in Los Angeles.
Review :
"The time has finally arrived when women are telling the truth— the hard truths, the messy, glorious, loud, tender, screeching corporeal truths - about their lives as they live them and not lived as we are asked to live them. Wendy C. Ortiz's writing will rearrange your DNA. Permanently, beautifully" - Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water: A Memoir
"Excavation by Wendy C. Ortiz will change your life. Readers will find everything here: a gripping and necessary story, luminous writing and an utterly compelling heroine who is both generous and fierce. You will emerge changed, dazzled, energized, disbelieving and yet a believer. Most of all, read this book because, like all great literature, and especially the best memoirs, it will make you feel more alive." - Emily Rapp, author of The Still Point of the Turning World and Poster Child "
"It's rare to meet a memoirist who can write about the darkest things without judgment and emotional simplification. Wendy C. Ortiz is that kind of writer, and Excavation is a book that's devastating, funny, tough, broken, and achingly clear all at the same time." - Paul Lisicky, author of Later: My Life at the Edge of the World
" A raw, unflinching memoir, beautifully told, Excavation is a portrait of all that roils beneath the teenage surface, a reminder of the secrets that any kid might be hiding. Ortiz is a fearless and generous storyteller, peeling back the layers of memory, exploring her parents' alcoholism and her years-long illicit relationship with a teacher, never slipping into the easy traps of sentimentality or self-pity. This is a brave, illuminating book..." - Cari Luna, author of The Revolution of Every Day
" Excavation stopped my heart. Its story is vital, cracking open a dialogue about what we keep secret and how those secrets shape our lives. The narrative is direct and unflinching, pulling you, challenging you, the kind of read where you call in sick because ohmygod what happens next but between those moments, Ortiz hits pause and looks back, allowing the reader to breathe with her, to reflect with her, to " wrestle with ghosts," in language so breathtakingly beautiful, so precise and poetic and true." - Megan Stielstra, author of Once I Was Cool
