Authenticity and Identity: Choosing What to Keep and What to Discard

Defining the Thematic Claim

In It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway, Elizabeth Passarella argues that authenticity is not a fixed state of being true to a single, unchangeable self. Instead, identity is an active, ongoing process of selecting which parts of ourselves to hold onto and which to release in different contexts. The memoir’s unifying claim is that we become most ourselves not by refusing to adapt, but by consciously deciding what we are willing to change for relationships, work, or place—and what we will never surrender. Passarella demonstrates this through her career at Vogue, her attachment to her father’s hideous sofa, her decision to stay in New York City during the pandemic, and the symbols she carries forward.

The Vogue Years: Polishing or Erasing the South?

Passarella’s time in the beauty department of Vogue forces her to confront how much of her Memphis upbringing she must hide to succeed. In a meeting about the annual Age Issue, a fellow Southerner describes a CEO as “Southern but, you know, polished”—a phrase that implies her regional identity is a flaw to be sanded down. Passarella realizes she could thrive at Vogue only by “discard[ing] a comfortable part of me and leav[ing] it outside the building” (Elizabeth Passarella). She chooses to leave the magazine instead.

Yet she acknowledges complexity: she still paints her toenails nude two decades later because Anna Wintour’s preference made sense practically. Authenticity here is not all-or-nothing. Passarella keeps the useful habit while rejecting the pressure to suppress her voice. She later finds freedom writing about food for The Kitchn, where she learns “cooking by feel”—a metaphor for bending rules to find your own voice. This episode establishes that identity can adapt temporarily for a job, but that some core parts (like her drawl, her love of clogs, her skepticism of fashion) cannot be erased without damaging the self.

The Ugly Couch: Keeping Memory, Letting Go of the Object

The couch her father bought in 1968 becomes a physical symbol of family identity and the difficulty of separating memory from material. Passarella’s real estate agent insists the nine-foot plaid velour sofa must go before the apartment can sell. Rather than toss it, she skins it, keeping the fabric in a bag in her closet. Her sister compares this to taxidermy, and Passarella agrees (“something like that”).

The couch represents her father, her grandmother’s bedroom, the New Orleans apartment where she and Michael started married life. But it also represents a burden: it has followed her across states, never quite fitting in New York. In skinning the couch, Passarella performs a literal act of curation—separating the sentimental value (the velour’s coolness, the memory of her father’s pride) from the physical object that hinders her present life. This mirrors her approach to identity: you do not have to carry the whole thing forward; you can keep only what matters and leave the frame behind.

The fabric scraps remain in her closet, unresolved. This unresolved status is itself authentic: not every letting-go is clean.

Staying Put During the Pandemic: Identity Rooted in Place

When COVID-19 hits New York City, Passarella chooses to stay while many friends leave. She admits she lied about how well her family coped, feeling defensive about the city’s reputation. She compares herself to a burrowing owl from Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot: friendly on the surface but stubborn about digging her own hole. She writes, “I think New York City is part of my identity, and I’m meant to live here forever” (Michael Passarella).

The pandemic tests this claim. Her small apartment becomes cramped, remote school is chaotic. Yet she refuses to flee. She accepts help from neighbors Delia and Nikki, sharing apartments and baked goods. This is a shift: earlier she struggled to accept help, seeing it as weakness. Now she sees allowing others to support her as part of staying authentic to her commitment to place. Her identity is not a solitary project but one formed in community. She concludes, “I needed to stay and heal alongside New York” (Lois). The burrowing-owl metaphor captures the contradiction: she is both sociable and stubborn, both needy and fiercely independent.

Character and Symbol Connections

Passarella’s husband Michael grounds her when she overidentifies with objects (he advises waiting on the tattoo) and when she needs medical certainty (Chapter 2). Her daughter Julia mirrors her own middle-school rebelliousness, forcing Elizabeth to reconsider how she expresses identity. She sees Julia taking up a righteous cause and realizes, “She is me… I needed to let her” (Julia Passarella). Authenticity here means recognizing your traits in another and choosing to support rather than suppress them.

Lois, the widow from whom Elizabeth buys the apartment, refuses to take any of the apartment’s contents except a small ceramic camel—a keepsake from her husband. This echoes Elizabeth’s own selective hoarding: both women keep one symbolic object while discarding the rest. Lois’s missing passport and photo ID (Lois’s Missing Passport and Photo ID) suggest a fractured sense of identity, recovered later when Elizabeth returns them. The passport is a literal document of identity; returning it restores a piece of Lois’s self.

The Central Park running-route tattoo (The Central Park Running Route Tattoo) is the most deliberate symbol of chosen identity. Elizabeth considers a tattoo of her children or her husband, but decides on the shape of the route that begins and ends at her apartment. It represents home as a loop—you always return. The tattoo is a talisman for the apartment deal, but more deeply, it marks the body with an abstract idea of belonging.

The ceramic camel (The Ceramic Camel) that Lois takes is a small, idiosyncratic relic. Neither object has obvious value; both are kept for reasons that only the keeper fully understands. In this memoir, authenticity means honoring those private reasons without needing to justify them.

Complexity and Contradiction

Passarella does not pretend she has perfect clarity about authenticity. She admits she “lied” about how well she coped during the pandemic. She holds contradictory opinions: she likes nude toenails but hates the pressure to be polished; she believes in showing up for friends even when it costs her, but she refuses to attend therapy regularly, arguing that writing and community serve the same purpose. In the chapter on questionable opinions, she writes that spending money on childcare so she can write is more important to her than therapy. She does not offer a universal rule; she simply describes her own math.

The memoir resists a tidy resolution. The ugly-couch fabric is still in her closet. She may move again. The tattoo was postponed. Identity remains provisional. What Passarella models is a process of continually asking: What do I need to keep? What can I let go of? The answer changes with context—job, marriage, motherhood, city. Authenticity is not a destination but a practice of attention and choice.

Study Questions

1. How does Passarella’s decision to skin the couch rather than discard it fully illustrate her view of identity?
   Answer: By keeping the fabric, she preserves the sensory memory and emotional connection while removing the physical burden. This mirrors her approach to identity: she does not reject her past (Southern, daughter, Memphian) but curates which aspects she carries forward, adapting them to her current life.

2. What does the phrase “but, you know, polished” reveal about external pressures to conform? How does Passarella ultimately respond to that pressure?
   Answer: The phrase implies that a Southern identity is inherently rough and needs refinement. Passarella responds by leaving Vogue when she realizes that succeeding there would require discarding too much of herself. She keeps only the practical lessons (nude toenails) and rejects the erasure of her voice.

3. Compare the symbolism of the ugly-couch fabric with Lois’s ceramic camel. What do these objects say about how we manage emotional attachments?
   Answer: Both women keep one small, non-utilitarian object that represents a loved one. The fabric is a piece of her father’s couch; the camel belonged to Lois’s husband. Neither object can be rationally justified, but keeping it feels essential. This suggests that authenticity sometimes means honoring irrational attachments.

4. In the pandemic chapter, Passarella compares herself to a burrowing owl. How does this metaphor capture the tension between her public persona and private struggles?
   Answer: The owl is friendly on the surface (“howdy bird”) but fiercely independent and stubborn about its hole. Passarella projects competence and positivity while privately struggling with guilt, anger, and the need for help. The metaphor allows her to hold two truths: she is both the cheerful neighbor and the person who cannot admit she is falling apart.

5. Why does Passarella reject the idea that everyone should go to therapy? How does this stance connect to her overall argument about identity?
   Answer: She argues that therapy is valuable but not the only path to self-knowledge; for her, writing and close friendships serve the same purpose. This reflects her belief that authenticity requires each person to find their own “math” for what to spend time and money on. There is no one-size-fits-all prescription for being true to oneself.