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Weird

Olga Khazan
Chapters (46)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright
  3. Dedication
  4. BEING WEIRD
  5. Weird
  6. Todd, Part I
  7. The Realization
  8. Daniel, Part I
  9. Julia, Part I
  10. Beverly, Part I
  11. Jess, Part I
  12. The Exclusion
  13. Jess, Part II
  14. Emma, Part I
  15. Asma, Part I
  16. The Sting
  17. Emma, Part II
  18. Vivienne, Part I
  19. Alex, Part I
  20. THE WEIRD ADVANTAGE
  21. Creativity
  22. Truth
  23. Alex, Part II
  24. Julia, Part II
  25. HOW TO BE DIFFERENT
  26. Getting Support
  27. Julia, Part III
  28. Comfort with Discomfort
  29. Beverly, Part II
  30. Asma, Part II
  31. Better Than the Rest
  32. The Big Picture
  33. Daniel, Part II
  34. Deana, Part I
  35. Vivienne, Part II
  36. Emma, Part III
  37. Change Yourself
  38. Todd, Part II
  39. TO STAY DIFFERENT, OR TO FIND YOUR OWN KIND?
  40. Staying
  41. Leaving
  42. In Between
  43. Deana, Part II
  44. Acknowledgments
  45. Discover More
  46. Notes

Title Page

Copyright

Copyright © 2020 by Olga Khazan

Cover design by Amanda Kain

Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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First Edition: April 2020

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Print book interior design by Marie Mundaca

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBNs: 978-0-316-41848-5 (hardcover), 978-0-316-41849-2 (ebook)

E3-20200305-DA-NF-ORI

Dedication

To my parents, the original weirdos

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PART ONE

BEING WEIRD

Chapter 1

Weird

The origin of my weirdness is that I grew up a Russian-Jewish immigrant in a town called Midland in West Texas, in a region whose biggest claims to fame are being the onetime home of George W. Bush and serving as the inspiration for Friday Night Lights. A Chicagoan once asked me what the nearest big city to my childhood home was. When I matter-of-factly responded that it was El Paso, he burst out laughing.

My father, who had been an electrical engineer and black-market TV repairman in Russia, had secured a job at a Midland petroleum engineering company by offering to provide Russian translations for the company’s oil deals with Siberians. (Siberia having had, along with the rest of Russia, recently discovered capitalism.) My mom did accounting for a small company, and sometimes she pitched in with the translating. My parents would often take me along to their translating jobs, so I spent much of my childhood asleep on white tablecloths, waiting for the adults to wrap up their schmoozing.