AN INSTANT INTERNET HEIRLOOM.

This is not just the first book about Elizabeth Wurtzel since her death in 2020—this is the first book about Elizabeth Wurtzel...ever.

Listen. This book is beautiful. It's strange. It's genre-defying and necessary and chock full of information and secrets. It's juicy! Kooky! Surprising! Dark. And sure, yeah. Okay. FINE! It's also probably full of typos, but still. In my personal opinion, this is a book the world NEEDS right now. Not just because I want to take the spotlight of the internet that's pointed at me and share it with my favorite author that everyone's slowly forgetting about—The Queen Mother of all modern hot mess memoirists, Elizabeth Wurtzel! But I also want to make the sort of book that I need in a crisis.

When I'm crashing out, I'm never going to reach for high-brow literary fiction. I just can't stomach that kind of dense, intense—often purposefully cryptic—writing when I'm well and truly spiraling. Even a book like Scammer would be too playfully poetic and downright bewildering for me on a day when my brain's going through it emotionally. Perhaps you can always enjoy cerebral literature mid-mental breakdown, and if so, wow! Good for you! Write an advice book please because I would love to learn the trick to this! But me? Never. When I'm down bad, overwhelmed, and freaking the fuck out, I just want a strong woman to tell me what's true.

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed is a great example of what I look for in my toughest moments. How to Be a Person in the World by Heather Havrilesky is another absolute classic that I own multiple, tattered copies of, and hey! Did you know that literal TAYLOR SWIFT even liked Untamed by Glennon Doyle Melton so much that Taylor tweeted a thank you note to the author!?  I'd even include Sarah Manguso's 300 Arguments in this very specific genre of Self-Help but where the narrator is so flawed that their advice comes off completely unpretentious and attainable. And I promise you! ALL of the advice in Elizabeth Wurtzel and Caroline Calloway's Guide to Life is only what I know to be reliable and good. and true. I stayed in my goddamn lane with this book! There's no financial panning tips. No commentary on the conflict in Gaza. I only wrote about the very few things that I do better than anyone else and the lessons I learned at enormous personal cost. I'm basically a world-class expert on what not to do.

And, of course, I include Elizabeth's advice, too! This is the part that might get me sued. In 1999, Wurtzel published an advice book called The Secret of Life which has now been out of print for over twenty years. I excerpt heavily from this book, but I do so with new edits, footnotes, and original illustrations. In fact, every single page of this book has a GORGEOUS drawing that I commissioned from the graphic design genius herself, Sam West. (I love you, Sam! Working with you is teaching my hardened heart to trust in female creative partnerships again!)

The majority of this new book, however, my own advice combined with two never-before-seen essays. Elizabeth Wurtzel and Caroline Calloway's Guide to Life is divided into three parts. The first section is about a group of writers I'm calling “The Great American Cambridge Sads”—Wurtzel, Plath, Maguso, naturally. But also Anne Sexton, Tara Westover, and Leslie Jamison! Then the middle section, which is also the largest section, is titled "The Actual Advice Part." And the third and final part of my new book is a "Bad Bio" about Elizabeth Wurtzel—basically an essay gathering up all the little details of her life that tickle me silly. It's not the most scholarly piece of prose out there, I'll admit. But I do hope that all the primary sources and anecdotes and articles I collected in this book can be the jumping off point for other sad, literary it girls out there who want to continue to honor her legacy. I can't wait to read the books that this one inspires you to write!

And in addition to this book,

YOU GET TO MANY EXTRA GOODIES!!!!!!

Like, so. Many. Extra. Goodies.

1. ⛓️🌈🦄 Caged Medieval Unicorn Sticker

• This is a reproduction of that famous tapestry at The Cloisters. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous sticker. Sam has recolored it in a way that will literally match with anything. Completely fucking obsessed with the rainbow fence. When I decorated my laptop with the whole CC Sticker Suite, I gave this unicorn one a real place of honor, smack in the middle, right over the Apple logo.

2. ⛓️🦄🌾 Caged Medieval Unicorn Temporary Tattoo

• Same image as the sticker, but larger and without the color. Just a simple, minimal black line tattoo, which are my favorite kind. Personally, I think this medieval design would look devastatingly chic on a strong male bicep (so slap it on the luckiest man in your life so you can enjoy the pleasure of looking at his arms!) or perhaps applied just beneath the breasts on the side of a girl's torso could be nice, too.

3. 🩸🦌♥️ Bleeding Antlers Temporary Tattoo

• This is an image of a bleeding heart pierced by antlers. Look at the photos. It's hard to explain. But I promise you this tattoo would look HOT on a collar bone or maybe a shoulder blade.

4. 🩸🦌♥️ Bleeding Antlers Sticker

• Same situation as the unicorn tattoo where the sticker version is colored and smaller. Except this time the sticker is way smaller. In fact, this is the tiniest sticker you'll receive. Listen. Sometimes you need a sticker that is large, but sometimes you need a sticker that that can decorate a tiny crevice. I put mine on my phone case.

5. 💤🧚🏻‍♂️🍞 Sleeping Fairy-Kitty Sticker

• It's a loaf of a sleeping cat. A siamese cat. The cat has wings and is also wearing a flower crown. There's a lot going on here, but as you can see in the photos—the result is sheer cuteness.

6. 💠🔑🏙️ Turquoise West Village Key Chain 

• This is honestly some of my favorite merch we've ever made. I use mine every day. One side says "CC HQ" (as in Caroline Calloway Headquarters) and the other side just says "WEST VILLAGE." It's iconic. It's useful. It's the perfect shade of turquoise. And there's something sort of lucky this trinket. I swear I've started losing my keys less the moment I began using this.

7. 💐🪻⚜️ Odd Victorian Flower People Sticker

• I LOVE THIS STICKER!!! Of all the stickers we made for the stationary suite for the Luxury First Editions of this new book, the odd Victorian Flower People are above and beyond my favorite. I gave this bad boy a place of pride on my phone case, as you can see from the photos.

8. 🍄👼🏻🥬 Sonny Angel Radish Baby Temporary Tattoo

• All hail Radish Baby.

9. 🖼️📖🖋️ Ex Libris Book Plate

•  Have you ever seen those Ex Libris book-plates in old, rare, possibly haunted books of yore? Ex Libris means "From the Library of" and I sincerely hope you feel like an aristocrat when you write your name down and claim this copy as your own. The design on the inside cover is truly spectacular.

10. 📚📄🥇 STICKER SHEET of All My Favorite Books

• The books included are:
  • Poems by Emily Dickinson
  • Scammer by Caroline Calloway (it's important to believe in yourself)
  • Collected Poems by Anne Sexton
  • Sex & Rage by Eve Babitz
  • Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
  • In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (iykyk)
  • Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
  • Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood (please read this!!!)
  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

11. 🔎🦋⚗️Creepy Butterfly Specimen Display Case Temporary Tattoo

• I don't know why, but I'm obsessed with the idea of someone putting this on the inside of their arm? However, at the same time I really do think this is the most versatile of all our tattoos. Please tag me if you put this somewhere glamorous and interesting and take a photo.

12. 🎧🗿🏛️ Classical Bust with Headphones Sticker

• This is image is based on something I once saw at a party at Cambridge and Sam did such a good job bringing this illustration to life that this sticker is among the champion inner circle that got a spot on my phone case. That's how much I love this little pensive guy.

13.🎗️👒 🎀 Double Sided Satin Hair Ribbon!!!

• It's very important to me that you understand how high quality this ribbon is. We are not giving you plastic polyester shit here. This is Double! Sided! Satin! Ribbon. So there's real satin through and through. My wish is that someday when you wear this ribbon in your hair and people say, "I like your bow!" You reply without missing a beat. "Thank you so much! Caroline Calloway actually gave it to me!" Please say that for me.

14. 🍊📦🌴 Heartfelt Custom Envelopes :')

• We designed and ordered these envelopes specially for this book. "Packed in sunny Florida with care and chaos" they all say! So don't believe for even a second than any detail of this Luxury First Editions was too small for us to consider.

15. 📝💌🔖  Thank You Note From Me & Matisse

• Obviously we need to be polite. And we're so grateful! Truly. None of this art would be possible without you. And so every single card says "Thank you for being a goddamn patron of the arts!" and goddamn! Do we mean it.

16. 🃏🔥👹 "The Fuck Up" Tarot Card Sticker

• Remember how for Scammer we had those turquoise Tarot Card stickers that said "The Scammer?" Yeah, well this is just like that. Only now we're adding a new character to the deck! "The Fuck-Up." I wanted to lean into the same irony that Elizabeth Wurtzel milked when she published her own advice book. 

17. ‼️✍🏻🔢 Hand-Signed and Numbered

• Each Luxury First Edition comes signed by me! It's not a print. It's not a stamp of my signature. I'm hand-signing each Luxury First Edition and, boy! WHAT A DUMB DECISION I MADE BY COMMITTING TO THIS PLAN! I don't have health insurance and I will absolutely be paying for carpal tunnel treatment out-of-pocket someday.

18. 🪄🖌️🎨 And Maybe This Shouldn't Count, But...All of The Illustrations?

• This is the first book I've ever released with illustrations... And my God. Oh my FUCKING God. They are just so beautiful. There's a drawing on every page. Which means that the beauty in this book is non-stop and aggressive. Every time you turn the page there is a new surprise waiting for you. And goddamn! It was such a moving experience bringing these visions to life with the incredible Sam West. The way we would work is I would come up with a whimsical and/or haunting concept, say... A face in a flower but the eyes are scratched out like in a horror movie. Or an ancient Greek vase but the flowers in it are pixelated! Or an 18th century Lover's Eye painting dripping in pearls! It was so meaningful and just plain FUN watching Sam take my rambling texts and turn them into ART. Obviously my history with female creative partnerships is fraught. But I've said it before and I'll say it again: Sam fucking West (rhymes with "She's the best") is teaching my hardened heart to love again. Like in a movie where a rich man adopts an orphan. Except somehow in this scenario I am also the penniless orphan because around Sam I'm operating in a constant state of awe.
• Tldr; Sam West is a genius. Every single page of this book has a tiny work of art on it. Honestly, I wouldn't even mind if you cut up this book for scrapbooking supplies or ripped out some pages so you could stick them to your wall. This book is bursting with good advice and even better beauty. Do with it as you will. The only reason this book exists is that I wanted to make an object you could cherish.