The Best Little Girl in the World

At lunch with friends, she asked how she was supposed to get over it, almost as though there should be a formula that could be followed.

Karen also contacted Cherry Boone O'Neal, who had publicly discussed her own recovery from an eating disorder and represented something Karen desperately wanted: evidence that a person could become healthy, marry, and have a child after becoming seriously ill. Karen ultimately chose Steven Levenkron, a New York therapist whose book The Best Little Girl in the World had made him one of the best-known names associated with anorexia treatment.

In January nineteen eighty-two, she moved into the Regency Hotel in Manhattan and began seeing him five days a week.

Itchy Ramon moved into the second bedroom of the suite to provide companionship and support.