Wishful Drinking
by Carrie Fisher
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Book Reviews of Wishful Drinking
Book Review: Wishful Drinking produces Wishful Thinking...
Summary: 5 Stars
...that alcoholism, mental illness, drug addiction, and shock treatment can actually work together to deliver the most outrageous humor in authorship history to our eager front door (and even inside the house.) Now I've always been a fan of Hollywood Brat autobiographies, and Carrie's latest one is the FUNNIEST and most brilliant one I've ever devoured. I have to give credit, though, to Ned Wynn, whose book "We Will Always Live in Beverly Hills" contained a prologue so hysterical that no one else can top that one short page in their own books. And sure, I've found humor in other H-wood memoirs too. Jane Wyman was apparently so busy with her career and her social life that son Michael thought their black cook was his mother until he reached the age of eight. And Lana Turner was always so absent from home that Cheryl Crane actually envied her next-door-playmate, Liza Minnelli, because Liza's mom, Judy Garland, seemed to always just be laying around the house.
Well, I saw the humor. But I think the kids were serious.
Not to worry about Carrie Fisher though...not a single mishap or "tragedy" escaped her keen observation and a very blunt funny-bone. The only way to review "Wishful Drinking" is just to give you a few of her reflections, her lines, that had me laughing out loud. And I'm too damned old to laugh out loud.
Carrie became a star at 19 in "Star Wars" just as her mom, Debbie Reynolds, did at 19 in "Singin' in the Rain." Other than that, they shared very little, since Debbie seemed to take herself so seriously, and Carrie is totally relaxed telling us that she had an affair with a Democrat politician (Chris Dodd) but it was a Republican politician named Greg who died in her bed. Not that she'd ever have SEX with a Republican, and Greg was gay anyway, but they had both taken too much oxycontin and just passed out together. Carrie was the only one who woke up, but she still wants to honor Greg with a story about how he had shared office space in the White House with W. when George the First was President...and even tells in hysterical detail the 'frat boy fart prank' W. continually played on poor old Greg. Dead Greg. (Though I assume it was oxycontin that killed him, not W.'s flatulence.)
But politicos and her own parents are not the only ones cleverly ripped by Carrie's sharp tongue. About the Oscar nomination Debbie Reynolds accomplished for "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," Carrie goes on..."But tragically she lost to Julie Andrews for her stunning, layered, and moving portrait of Mary Popppins. IBSEN'S Mary Poppins, of course."
Her dad and mom had been Best Man and Matron of Honor at the wedding of their dear friends, Mike Todd and Liz Taylor. But upon the sudden demise of Mike Todd's private plane... "Naturally my father flew to Elizabeth's side, gradually making his way slowly to her front. He first dried her eyes with his handkerchief, then he consoled her with flowers, and he ultimately consoled her with his penis."
But Debbie bounced back by marrying "very, very old" Harry Karl, a shoe tycoon, who housed his new family in a gaudy mansion... "containing eight little pink refrigerators (you know, in case Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came over) and we had a lanai and many utility closets and three pools (you know, in case two broke.)"
Not only does she dissect her new step-dad, but gets (and gives) some good laughs out of his past. He had been married to, and divorced twice, by... "the actress(ish) Marie 'The Body' McDonald, who married a total of nine times. That many marriages could give you a headache. Anyway it did with Marie because she overdosed on pain-killers. And that last husband, not to be outdone, shot himself. You might say they loved each other to death."
Her dad, the crooner, also takes a lot of blows from his loving daughter, who enjoys telling about how he once swallowed two new miniature hearing aids thinking they were pills of some kind. Eddie had moved on from Debbie to Liz, and then Liz went on to Richard Burton, so Eddie went on to Connie Stevens, and then to a "Miss Louisiana" who was in her early 20's wedding Eddie in his late 50's. But after that disaster, he did find a really wonderful Chinese lady named Betty Lin, and they were together for several happy years. But... "Betty passes away. But don't worry about him. He's not done for long, because now he dates all of Chinatown! He does this partly as a tribute to Betty and partly because my father has had so many face-lifts that he looks Asian himself."
You know, I'm saddened by Carrie's alleged mental problems...but I'm still laughing. And folks, all those little quotes and stories from her were just segments of the first two chapters! Wait till you get to chapter 3. If you are possessed with a dark, warped sense of humor like mine...you're gonna LOVE "Wishful Drinking." Honest.
Book Review: Double Edged Drollery that is Unexpectedly Optimistic
Summary: 5 Stars
I spent all of kindergarten waiting for my brown hair to return to the blonde of babyhood. It was the early 1970's and I would look at women on book jackets, TV shows and magazine covers. My immature inarticulate instincts informed me that these women were being held up as something to strive for, as the feminine version of success so to speak. I noted that they all shared one characteristic. Long Blonde Hair. At the tender age of five I reluctantly abdicated all hope of ever getting my own starring TV role or becoming a modern day princess. It couldn't happen. Not without blonde hair.
Somewhere along the way my body had unwittingly betrayed me. Soon after I turned four my fine dark blonde baby hair metamorphised into a near black thick mop. Once into grade school I realized through observation that light hair went dark, but dark hair did not go light; unless you used peroxide which folks thought was kind of tarty.
Resigned to my wallflower's fate time goes by. The summer of 1977 rolls around and my mother takes me to see Star Wars. Princess Leia enters the screen and I am transfixed by both her strange braided buns and her attitude. She never once bats her eyes to inflame the hero to acts of masculine bravado. Instead her favorite weapons are a sharp tongue, quick wits and when she can get it - a blaster.
Immediately I wanted to be an adventurous heroine too, and I wanted to have long, long hair - just like her. No longer did I want to endure my practical page boy, a "style" that even I recognized was unglam. New potential awakened within me I peep at my mother sitting in the cinema beside me and I have one of my few memorable moments of juvenile illumination.
My mother had long dark hair.
Like Fisher who has always felt outclassed by her own mother's extraordinary beauty, my adequately attractive crop does not compare to the perfect luxury of my mother's youthful tresses which fell glowing to her waist in a sheath of dark chocolate color tipped by highlights of coppery auburn, and so thick that an elastic hair wrap would often snap in half from the pressure of holding back her ponytail.
I had never before seen a movie with a blonde acting so brave, tough and fun as brown-haired Princess Leia. I had never ever seen a blonde with hair as awesome as my mother's completely gorgeous mane. In my nascent femininity I concluded - maybe there was something to being a brunette.
In some way, in some manner, girls all over America were reconsidering their potential as women by taking in this new kind of heroine. And Carrie Fisher is the iconic face of that heroine. Something which thankfully she doesn't take too seriously.
The role of Princess Leia has made Carrie Fisher equally or more famous than her Hollywood parents Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. In her latest book, a memoir, "Wishful Drinking" Fisher lets it all hang out about growing up a Hollywood kid in a dsyfunctional, (even for Hollywood standards) family, her celebrity status, and her various love relationships, including her longstanding romance with singer/songwriter Paul Simon. She also explains some of the freakier incidents that have landed her in the tabloids along with her experiences surrounding her alcoholism, drug addiction and manic-depression diagnosis.
I was unable to read one of her previous novels, "Postcards from the Edge" because I became weary of an endless litany of one-liners which eventually left me in despair of ever picking up the plot. Call me square but I still like my fiction to contain an easily distinguishable plot.
But a memoir by its nature provides enough structure to contain Fisher's inability to pass up a punch line. I read it very quickly which I thought to be a plus, not a disparagement. Thankfully missing is the painful minutia sometimes present in personal memoirs. Instead Fisher rolls along, going from topic to topic, in a way that is strangely not confusing to the reader since it is as if a girlfriend has plopped down on the couch beside you and is telling you about her day. Fisher doesn't dwell on her failures, or overly defend them. The author can admit to the privileges she enjoys, but doesn't dismiss the real challenges of her life either.
Not everyone can adequately distance themselves from their difficulties and portray distress and despair as delightfully funny. Maintaining just the slightest edge of pain in humor makes for the best comedy and this aptitude is one of Fisher's strengths. She tells is like it is without laying it on too thick.
Dark double-edged drollery that is unexpectedly optimistic. A recommended read for all of those early Gen-Xers who adore the original Star Wars series.
Book Review: How To Beat Hollywood Fame Game Agita In One Memoir Or Less
Summary: 4 Stars
Got this as a gift for the 2nd day of the Jewish Festival of Lights and devoured it in one manic all nighter sitting. Many years ago I recall seeing Fisher at an infamous LA underground showbiz subculture award show event which lead me to believe that she's real people, not an elite snob. As for flakiness, show me a goodie-two-shoes in LA and I'll show you a never-was F lister off the social radar and movieland icon charts.
This tidy concise autobio reads like a female Lenny Bruce stand up comic stream of consciousness head trip filled with wit and candor revealing private mental challenges made public. They are painful but the honesty and straightforward priority of her verbiage exorcises demons through an infotainment of absolute truth void of denial or excuses. She doesn't defame others for her self described inbred past. Instead she blames fame.
What happens when dimly lit stars self destruct in a fishbowl is a lack of street smarts makes them trust establishment figures too much so that they are easy prey for shrinks and toxic drug prescriptions. All this when a lifetime of substance abuse can be their original sin to begin with. So, are seeds of emotional instability more rooted in the chicken of childhood family neglect or the egg of substance abuse escapism?
Winking at the reader to make real people down to earth points, Carrie the victim is living proof of the vain Hollywood cult of celebrity where being alive means being in front of audiences and the media and family life and love is labeled quality time. Her Hollywood royal parentage makes it clear that she's an alpha female with too strong a life force for mensches. Hot blood likes to argue and hints at a need for intimacy.
Disease bought in liquor stores or from drug dealers is weakness and bad food, drugs or booze poison our minds and bodies. No one is born with chemical imbalances without outside intake. Carrie exhibits over the top anecdotes over the medical version of who she is when her reality was of someone bored and in need of something to fill up her time. She chose drugs and that caused her to lose her mind. And not the other way around.
But if Carrie grew up normal or boring we wouldn't have had Fisher the great novelist. All literary savants are head cases. And aside from her sci-fi cinematic legend, she found her true calling in life in words and books where she was meant to be all along. She may be a case study for those whose job it is to say what's wrong with you if you need help. For me, Fisher is just a classic air sign who thinks too much and lives in her head.
The only downside of this book is the revelation of the shock treatment. But not for the shock value but because she is too good with words to be subject to clinical erasure of a lifetime of experience still valuable as storage baggage for future novels. That she underwent an ECT therapy memory clearance of past regrets to get better renews her pop relevance for fans who know that only A list people survive Hollywood's A list.
About her looks. At her best she resembled Mary Ellen from the Waltons, (Judy Norton-Taylor)---who was once in Playboy. Enough said. History shows all great writers have agita. Those who lose it lose themselves in words. It's only a matter of time before she gets her just due. This memoir is sodium pentathol for warm hearts and souls from a beautiful mind perfected through life's suffering. And we should all be so lucky.
Book Review: The many faces of "normal"
Summary: 4 Stars
Surprisingly this book was a real breeze to get through, I read it in one sitting and enjoyed it but it wasn't as heavy as the cover permits one to believe. Of course who am I to say how hard someone's life is, especially after reading what Carrie Fisher, the actress and the real person with flaws and insecurities, had to go through in her life. Maybe people have a misguided sense that celebrities have all this money so therefore they should always be happy and carefree but such is not the case here. With her famous parents and their breakup Carrie hopes from stone to stone on a bobbing brook, and we get glimpses of her reflection in the water, that's how this book feels. She reminds us that celebrities are people too, they have a job but then they go some, have dinner and go to bed, they aren't magical creatures living in la la land, even if most are flawed by their altered sense of reality.
Written in a light and slightly sarcastic tone it takes the reader on a condensed version of Carrie's life so far, the journey to stardom and her breakthrough role in Star Wars. The gossip about her weight and the famous hair do is injected with humor and few anecdotes from the set and the crew were briefly mentioned, and I wish there was more of that in the book. After all she uses her Princess Leia image on the cover but inside the book she dances around the actual topic, I wish there was more on her Hollywood days and the old Star Wars era that is somehow still fascinating. Her alcoholism is briefly mentioned here and there and the book has a breezy feel to it, Carrie talks about serious things but in a lighthearted manner, as if she has it behind her and now can joke about it all. The many years in therapy were spent trying to like attending them, when in the end she realized she didn't have to like them, that it was okay to hate them but to learn something from them nevertheless.
I really enjoyed reading about her relationship with her mom, Debbie Reynolds and her own teenage daughter Billie, the sweet moments were shiny bright jewels that glimmered with love and adoration for those two women in her life. And Carrie is a cool woman; one can see that, I enjoyed getting a glimpse into her life, the ups and the many downs that made it hard to keep her emotions in line with her mood and her fight to be free of anything that clouded her feeling of being normal. The book is a light read, like I said it has many funny bits and pieces and some nice pictures form her personal stash of memories and I certainly want to read her other novels, since she has an interesting take on what all this is about. Life isn't easy but not going through is would be so much worse, we must always remember about the sunshine even if it's obscured by dark clouds.
- Kasia S.
Book Review: What a Read!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Carrie, you have done it again! I am writing this in the conversational style you have written Wishful Drinking in. I could not put the book down--and I would not call it a "Fast Read" with its depth. You show your reader that Whatever one is going through, one can transcend with humor, warmth, and a wide angle lens. I admire your honesty through all of your life experiences of Hollywood, Relationships, and your inner workings/plus struggles. What a gift to others full of malaise, resentment, and paralysis because of what life has given them: Very Transcendental and wonderful humor, new writing styles forged, and direct contact with your reader's own consciousness. Should one enjoy a non linear read, which actually is Not disorganized (language and thoughts Are circular--but you (Carrie) do this with clarity. For those wishing for serious diagnose of ailments, especially bipolar, they may read Jamison's own description in The Unquiet Mind. She is a very accomplished psychiatrist who could not believe, at first, she was bipolar. Now, she is writing about the connection between artists, geniuses and bipolar. For those wishing a start, go to the internet to look up Famous People with Bipolar--artists, actors, scientists--all fields past and present. There are one million people (or more) diagnosed with bipolar or who go undiagnosed. Should more write of their experiences,Carrie, you would not feel like a "poster child" Should one look at this country, or the world--would you not call it bipolar too? I am writing this in response to those who wished more serious issues addressed, in the midst of reviews. I could write much much more and cite. Find out what you think.Carrie Fisher is the writer's writer in her style and ability to open up one's own creativity. She is Proust, Virgina Woolf, Faulkner-- with a comical edge spanning Hollywood and the Universe. For the reader, this is a must read. You will feel that you are listening,sympathizing, and laughing over life with her over tea at home, or cappuccino at a cafe. Thanks Carrie! I want to read it again! Rochmanna Miller-A Los Angelino too.
A byline: Actually, Wishful drinking does not discuss bipolar that much. Postcards on the Edge discussed self medication,and The Best Awful, the journey into discovery of bipolar. I had written this because there may some who are judgmental, because of lack of the most scientific evidence regarding brain chemicals (such as lack of seratonin) now featured in such magazines as Time. There are different forms and it raps around the personality of each person differently. This add on will hopefully encourage others to read more on the findings, and for Carrie to feel less like the Poster Child who had the courage to discuss it.