Sneak Peek at Lena Dunham’s Book

By Anne Cohen June 2, 2014

During a panel at the Book Expo America — held at the Jacob Javits center this weekend— Lena Dunham shared a sneak peek from her upcoming book, “Not That Kind of Girl.”

On stage with Alan Cumming, Martin Short, and Cólm Toibín, Dunham admitted that she loosely based her essays on the mother-of-all-memoirs/advice/general commiserator guide, Helen Gurley Brown’s “Having It All.”

Our friends at The Cut have the passage, taken from the book’s introduction:

And if I can take what I’ve learned to make one menial job easier for you, prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel like you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine was worthwhile. I’m already predicting my future shame in thinking I had anything to offer you, but also my future glory in having stopped you from trying an expensive juice cleanse, or thinking that it was your fault when the person that you’re dating suddenly backs away because they’re intimidated by the clarity of your personal mission here on Earth.

“Not That Kind of Girl” hits bookstores in September.

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

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