WE ARE EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE

LIFE OF THE PARTY

BY

TEA HACIC-VLAHOVIC!

OFFICIAL RELEASE JUNE 1 2020

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**COVER BY MATTHEW REVERT MATTHEWREVERTDESIGN.COM**

SYNOPSIS

Life of the Party is a darkly humorous narrative set in Milan. The story swan dives into the underbelly of Milanese fashion and nightlife, through the eyes of Mia, a young expat. She came to Milan to escape her problems but only found new and more glamorous ones. Mia indulges in the highs and lows that drugs and men can offer, only to be left with herself in the end. Can you lose your innocence if you never had it in the first place? Tragic, fun, and artful— Hacic-Vlahovic crafts a Beat novel for the Instagram generation. Life of the Party will leave you with a hangover and a "VIP" stamp on your heart.

PRAISE FOR LIFE OF THE PARTY

“Tea Hacic is an MDMA-fueled Oscar Wilde with fake eyelashes and this book is a Fear and Loathing for the late Berlusconi-era; a deep walk of shame that tiptoes between a bewildering Bildungsroman and a fever dream of social climbing and social embarrassment.”

Oliver Kupper, editor-in-chief of AUTRE MAGAZINE

"A recollection of youth as seen through the dichotomy of control vs desperation, Americana vs. Milanese, luxury vs poverty and uppers vs downers."

BJ Panda Bear at FLAUNT Magazine

“Tea recounts with brutal honesty the period in which Milan officially became the Italian city that everyone hates and envies.”

VICE Italy

EXCERPT

CHAPTER 1

BELLA MERDA

Milan shouldn’t be seen during the day. It’s too ugly and not in a cool way. It’s not a grungy music video or a teenage runaway. It’s a woman waking up hung-over, looking in a mirror, and screaming because she lost all her collagen overnight.

It’s pathetic because it wishes it weren’t ugly.

“E’ brutalismo?” I ask the church.
“No, solo brutto,” the gargoyles answer.

So the Duomo is full on weekends.

People need to do something in the daylight but can’t bare the sight of their own neighborhoods. Saturday and Sunday, they pour out of trams and walk around in circles. They fill up H&M and ZARA and shops that exist in every city on earth. I know because I do the same thing. I sit on the Duomo steps and light a cigarette.

The pigeons crowd around me.

“Hey dudes, what’s up?”

An albino pigeon with a runny eye and a grey pigeon with a missing toe are fighting over the butt of a cigarette.

“Eating trash and getting stepped on, you?”

“Same,” I shrug.

The pigeons are pimped out by immigrants. Tourists pay a couple euros to be covered in seeds, provided by the immigrants, who are then paid to take polaroid pictures of the tourists covered in pigeons eating the seeds. As soon as the picture is taken, the tourists scream and flap their arms around, tossing the pigeons away. “Disgusting!” they yell, as the pigeons run for their lives, confused and hurt by the ordeal.

I hate people.

And I don’t get the big deal about the Duomo. Sure, I get dizzy when I see it from a taxi window. And when I look at it close-up I want to cry. But I always want to cry, so that doesn’t mean anything. They never let me inside the Duomo because I was dressed too slutty. And I can guess it doesn’t have WIFI.

I doubt it has good bathrooms either.

A good bathroom has it all. A full toilet with a sturdy seat. Not a bare shell and definitely not a “squat.” A hole in the ground, can you imagine? I’d rather crap my pants! A good bathroom also has air conditioning, plenty of toilet paper and a large, well-lit mirror. I need to check my eyeliner and my thigh gap, thanks.

The best bathrooms in Milan are at: Straf Bar, LaRinascente and Santa Tecla.

The worst bathrooms in Milan are at: Bar Cuore, Atomic and, my apartment.

My WC is cramped and cold, even in the summer. The air is that of a basement in some soviet building full of landmines and mold. One light bulb hangs overhead, threatening me with its glow. The shadows it creates on my face make me look like a witch that eats babies. (Wrong: I’m vegetarian!) The toilet seat has a screw loose, the shower leaks, the curtain is moldy. The mirror is tiny and useless. I’m insulted someone put it there at all. I have to do my makeup in the hallway and dye my hair in the kitchen. People look down on me from the sidewalk. The windows don’t shut completely. It’s an open invitation for kidnapping, if anyone would want me. The ceiling is so low I high-five it when I shave my armpits.

I share the loft with Maria. She’s a journalist my age from Liguria. I don’t know where Liguria is, but I think it’s in the north. Maria’s too icy to be Southern. I met her at a party in some guy’s loft. She ended up kissing my date and I ended up kissing hers. Then we ended up leaving together. I told her I needed a place and she told me she needed a roommate. We split the rent, which is 700 euros a month. Maria dropped out of school to work full time for an online fashion magazine. “It’s the first one in Italy,” she claims. I hate to tell her there’s no future in online publishing. Only an idiot would stop buying paper magazines! We are bonded by our empty pockets and stomachs. The latter is a choice. We both have eating disorders we refuse to admit to. I’ve had mine since I was thirteen.

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Tea Hacic-Vlahovic

is a Croatian-American writer and performer. She has a BA in fashion design from Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti. She's been a columnist for Vice and Wired Italy, contributing editor of Wonderland Magazine and contributor to magazines like Autre, Oyster and i-D. She's the founder and creative director of a parody art
magazine, STAI ZITTA. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their dog. Life of the Party is her first novel. Follow her on IG & Twitter @teahacic

BIO PIC OF TEA HACIC-VLAHOVIC BY BENNET PEREZ

Life of the Party!