Publisher's Synopsis
Shawn Michael Severud's perdida: essays to read while intoxicated is a series of love letters to one of the most unifying experiences in life: being young, dumb and in love. This is a haunting collection of essays that exalts life, breaks it down and creates it anew. It brings words to the huddled masses. It shatters televisions. It brings forth light.
In this new age of technology, most of us have a Facebook, Twitter or a Tumblr. Could your old status updates, tweets or blog posts ever become a book? Twenty-six year old author, Shawn Michael Severud, has been writing blogs as a sort of release, or free therapy, for at least seven or eight years. Now he has released many of them as a book, which is a collection of Jack Kerouac-esque essays entitled: "perdida: essays to be read while intoxicated". The essays seem to be full of personal meaning for the author, about the growing pains of being a twenty-something: being in love, dealing with depression, as well as thoughts on religion, life and death, and a favorite Chinese food restaurant.
Shawn Michael also transferred them into his book as they were: devoid of capitalization of any words, saying: "If someone is posting on their blog or updating their Facebook status, a lot of the time, they aren't capitalizing words and are typically using little or no punctuation. They know that the internet is more of an informal setting, so they don't bother with it. Why waste the time when you can refresh your Facebook page every twenty seconds looking for new messages and comments?" And what does the subtitle mean? "Let's just say I think too much. I write better when I think less and alcohol makes that happen, so I just thought if I wrote them that way, maybe they would be more enjoyable to read that way as well."
"Perdida", which means "lost" in Spanish, is an ode to being young. The emotions reflect that: they're all over the place. Elation and grief can be found not only in neighboring essays, but in neighboring sentences. It is a poignant glimpse into the life of a twenty-something millennial and the knowledge that these essays were once blog posts makes "perdida" even more worth-while. I'd better go check my old blog and see if there's anything worth publishing!
"(perdida: essays to be read while intoxicated)... constantly changes my world. I love flipping it open and rediscovering parts every day. It is awesome for that. Like a daily Bible verse but better."
-Anthony Ethridge
