Short Synopsis
From a critically acclaimed performance artist, a funny, vivid, and ultimately heartbreaking memoir about forging identity in the chasm between cultures and classes.

Full Synopsis
Anya Liftig grew up with a foot in two very different worlds: While her mother's upbringing was so rural that the other kids called her "holler rat," her father came from a comfortable, upper-middle-class Jewish family. Anya spent school years in affluent Connecticut and summers in the holler. Shaped by the experience, she would go on to win a scholarship to Yale and become an acclaimed artist, using provocative performances to explore the contradictions and unanswered questions of her life. But when the world Anya was building for herself shattered, she was forced to reconcile where she'd come from with who she was and who she wanted to be.

In Holler Rat, Liftig masterfully interweaves family lore from her Appalachian childhood with her performance art pieces and scenes of the yearlong period in which her life fell apart, and plumbs the cathartic self-reckoning that followed. She takes us from her Mamaw's porch to Yale; from the site of a violent family land feud to a pre-gentrified Bushwick loft; and from a devastating childhood leg injury to having 243 raw eggs pelted at her in the name of art. In visceral, beautiful prose that ranges from raunchy and outrageous to sobering and tragic, Holler Rat is the origin story of an unconventional artistic life and a captivating account of the stumbling blocks, sacrifices, and discoveries along the way.

"Holler Rat beautifully recounts her upbringing where she often felt caught between two worlds: the comfortable, upper-middle-class life in Connecticut where she lived, and the summers spent in Appalachia, her mother’s home." —Culture Gabfest

"[A] searing debut memoir. . . Liftig vividly explains her struggle to reconcile her identities and sheds light on family tensions . . . This often somber account is buoyed by Liftig’s genuine love for her family, and draws on age-old questions of nature vs. nurture without devolving into cliché. Readers put off by the sermonizing of Hillbilly Elegy may find this glimpse at Appalachia more illuminating." —Publishers Weekly

"Liftig tackles a lot of compelling material in this memoir: her early childhood, her family history, her time at Yale, her artistic career, infertility struggles, and a failed marriage. But what stands out is her exploration of Ganderbill, how her mother’s family is tied to this land, her mother’s experiences as the one who left to pursue higher education, and Liftig’s own connection to the holler and her mother’s family." —Booklist