Trying to Float

Hysterically droll, touching, elegant, and wise a coming-of-age story from someone who possibly came of age before her parents (Patricia Marx, "New Yorker" writer and bestselling author), "Trying to Float" is a seventeen-year-old s darkly funny, big-hearted memoir about growing up in New York City s legendary Chelsea Hotel. New York s Chelsea Hotel may no longer be home to its most famous denizens Andy Warhol, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, to name a few but the eccentric spirit of the Chelsea is alive and well. Meet the family Rips: father Michael, a lawyer turned writer with a penchant for fine tailoring; mother Sheila, a former model and renowned artist who matches her welding outfits with couture; and daughter Nicolaia, a precocious high school junior at work on a record of her peculiar seventeen years. Nicolaia is a perpetual outsider who has struggled to find her place in public schools populated by cliquish girls and loudmouthed boys. But at the Chelsea, Nicolaia need not look far to find her tribe. There s her neighbor Storme, a tall woman who keeps a pink handgun strapped to her ankle; her babysitter, Jade, who may or may not have a second career as an escort; her friend Artie, former proprietor of New York s most famous nightclubs. The kids at school might never understand her, but as Nicolaia endeavors to fit in she begins to understand that the Chelsea s motley crew could hold the key to surviving the perils of a Manhattan childhood. Not since Holden Caulfield has there been such a fabulously compelling teen guide to New York City: Nicolaia Rips s debut is a disarming, humble, heartfelt, and wise tale of coming-of-age amid the contradictions, complexities, and shifting identities of life in New York City. A bohemian "Eloise" for our times, "Trying to Float" is a triumphant parable for the power of embracing difference in all its forms."

Review :
"Trying to Float" is hysterically droll, touching, elegant, and wise a coming-of-age story from someone who possibly came of age before her parents. No doubt, people will allude to other books in attempts to describe this one (Holden Caulfield if he went to public school, Eloise without room service) but truly Nicolaia s chronicle is sui generis. I had such a good time reading it that the person I share an apartment with told me to stop saying, You can t believe how extraordinary this is! because he was trying to concentrate on something else and anyway, he believed me the first time." --Patricia Marx "New Yorker staff writer and author of Let s Be Less Stupid and Him Her Him Again The End of Hi "" These little tales about little rascals in New York City are charming, strange, and inspiring. What a very funny, improbably truthful book about childhood this is. --Joseph O Neill, author of Netherland and The Dog" I love this book! Nicolaia Rips, while young, is the real thing. Wodehouse reborn in a young girl. He would have been charmed. --Joel Grey, author of Master of Ceremonies" "As a former resident of the Chelsea Hotel, I came at this book with trepidation. What could an 17-year-old have to say about the last Dionysian castle in New York City? My skepticism ended with the prologue. Nicolaia Rips writes with wit, discipline, and grace. Her voice is real. With this book she is announcing herself as a force in the next generation of artists." --Ethan Hawke