"The boy's coming-of-age story is about leaving home to save the world. The girl's coming-of-age story is about relinquishing the world beyond home. It is about finding a way to sacrifice one's yearning for the larger world and to be happy about it. Surrendering Oz is about giving up the safety of emotionally zoning out--about learning to think with the body. It is a memoir in essays that charts the emotional awakening of a bookish Bronx girl. Bonnie Friedman is the author of Writing Past Dark. She teaches creative writing at the University of North Texas"--

"Surrendering Oz is a memoir in essays that charts the emotional awakening of a bookish Bronx girl. We follow her from her early job as a proofreader at The Guinness Book of World Records, through an illicit liaison which threatens to destroy her marriage and finally see her take charge of her life as a Texas professor, writer and wise student of her own soul"--