Harley Loco

It is my honour to introduce these pages - so gravely, so straggly, so hopeful, bright, and true – Elizabeth Gilbert
Do any of us really know ourselves? This kind of exploration into the human spirit is what true religion is about. – Debbie Harry
Rayya Elias’ twisted, devastating memoir of a life lived on the margins can take its rightful place alongside The Basketball Diaries, Please Kill Me and Just Kids as a classic, blood-stained love letter to bohemian NYC – Craig Marks
Elias remains sympathetic as she tramples over her girlfriends, family and herself during the drug-addled chaos of Eighties New York … This book is to be gulped whole * Stylist *
Gritty, but brilliantly funny * Sunday Telegraph *
Rayya Elias’s clear-eyed account of her very messy New York life … A post-punk misery memoir that never asks for your sympathy * Herald *
Harley Loco succeeds because it conveys the appeal of a chaotic sex-and-drugs lifestyle … Elias’s perspective is often transparently self-deluding, but her voice is always appealing, and will doubtless find a warm and responsive audience * Daily Telegraph *
Elias’s writing (in her third language) is plain street, unliterary and compelling; her self-descriptions are impressive in their refusal to dodge or euphemise … That she wrote it at all is a major achievement for Elias; somewhat fittingly, perhaps, it’s a book that struggles with its own nature – Aida Edemariam * Guardian *

Rayya Elias was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1960 and moved to the United States in 1967. She is a musician, hairdresser, and filmmaker, and she also sells real estate to make some extra scratch. She lives in New York City and Little York, New Jersey and has been clean since August 8, 1997.

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