Slip

“The book is far more than a traditional recovery memoir – it challenges our either-or understanding of illness and wellness…..Blending memoir with investigative reporting gives the book unusual depth and authority….The book’s most important contribution is naming a phenomenon many survivors know intimately: the middle place, a space between sickness and full recovery where slips are accepted as part of the process…..Tarpley’s courage in rejecting the tidy recovery narrative in favor of messy, honest truth-telling makes SLIP an enlightening read.” –The Austin Chronicle“Her uplifting story should raise awareness about eating disorders, reduce stigma, and help survivors and their families stay hopeful.” –Booklist“For readers who have struggled with disordered eating or for the friends and family who support them, this book will be a welcome balm, reminding them that recovery is not always linear, and that’s okay.” –Library Journal“In Slip, Mallary Tenore Tarpley carves out a “middle place” between acute sickness and full recovery for those of us with eating disorders. Tarpley is the perfect guide for this conversation, as she seamlessly blends memoir, reportage, and research. At all times, Slip remains accessible, realistic, and hopeful about the messy and maddening process of recovering from disordered eating. This tremendous book will comfort, inspire, and educate readers. We are lucky that it exists.” – Christie Tate, New York Times bestselling author of Group“This is a must-read for anyone affected by the devastation of an eating disorder. Those who have suffered themselves will find a redemptive narrative to guide their recovery. Loved ones will understand more about how to support recovery without expecting perfection. And clinicians, educators, activists, and policy makers may decide their narrative should be less about eradicating eating disorders and more about elucidating them. We need to make space in the middle, in the shadows, where recovery becomes possible, just as Tarpley has shown us.” – Margo Maine, PhD, clinical psychologist and author “There is no single image of eating disorders in the United States, but so often, we think about eating disorders as a linear journey with a neat and happy ending. Mallary Tenore Tarpley beautifully disrupts this narrative with Slip, an erudite memoir that moves us into a new generation in which we’re not defined by our disorders. It’s an essential addition to a canon of memoirs that shift paradigms and push us toward a new idea of what it means to recover and to fully, completely live.” – Evette Dionne, author of Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul“Slip is a gorgeous, paradigm-smashing book that explores the liminal space between sickness and health where so many of us live. Blending memoir and reportage, Slip defies tidy narratives to show us we are not alone when we struggle, when we strive to get better, when we slip.” – Emi Nietfeld, author of Acceptance“Candid, courageous and meticulously researched, Slip is a game-changing addition to literature on disordered eating from the perspective of someone in committed recovery. Tarpley’s quest to exercise control in a turbulent world is meaningful and timely, and this book is a necessary read for anyone trying to understand—or grapple with—the dark side of perfectionism.” – Courtney Maum, author of The Year of the Horses

Mallary Tenore Tarpley is a journalism and writing professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Moody College of Communication and McCombs School of Business. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Time, and Teen Vogue, among other publications. She is the recipient of a prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant, which helped support her research and writing. Mallary graduated from Providence College and has a Master of Fine Arts in nonfiction writing from Goucher College. She lives outside of Austin, Texas, with her husband and two children. Slip is her first book.