Trying to Float Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel

"New York's Chelsea Hotel may no longer be home to its most famous denizens--Andy Warhol, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, to name a few--but the eccentric spirit of the Chelsea is alive and well. Meet the family Rips: father Michael, a lawyer turned writer with a penchant for fine tailoring; mother Sheila, a former model and renowned artist who matches her welding outfits with couture; and daughter Nicolaia, a precocious high school junior at work on a record of her peculiar seventeen years. Nicolaia is a perpetual outsider who has struggled to find her place in public schools populated by cliquish girls and loudmouthed boys. But at the Chelsea, Nicolaia need not look far to find her tribe"--