This book is quite a departure for me; I don’t think I had read any Hollywood celebrity memoirs before picking up this autobiography. But, informed about how great it was in the earlier review on this blog and being a fan of her comedy, I thought I’d give it a try. I was not disappointed.
Fisher, the now-deceased actress who will forever be Princess Leia to legions of Star Wars fans, had a very hard life. She was born a Hollywood princess, the daughter of celebrities Eddie Fisher, a famous singer in the 1950’s, and Debbie Reynolds, an actress remembered largely for her role in Singin’ in the Rain. The first, and perhaps most profound, misfortune to befall the author was the divorce of her parents after her father’s affair with Elizabeth Taylor. She writes that she dreams (as an adult) that he would come back home to give her a good upbringing, but her wish never came true— her parents never got back together. She very seldom even saw him. It exemplified to me the power of fathers in their children’s lives— power both to bless and to curse. When she grew up, Fisher, like so many Hollywood stars, struggled with substance abuse. More unusually, she was also afflicted with a mental illness: bipolar disorder.
But as serious and tragic as these bare facts may sound, this is truly a book of comedy. The actress suffered so much, presumably, that the only way she could stay sane was by making light of her troubles, as she does in this writing. I found these memoirs hilarious and very clever, often making me laugh out loud!
The only major issues I had with the book were that the writing rambled to some extent (it’s very colloquial) and that the author used some crude language. For the latter reason, I wouldn’t recommend it for children or grown-ups who are very sensitive to vulgar language. But, for me, the comedy more than made up for all this, so I would still recommend it to most adults.
- John W.
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