By: Carrie Fisher Publisher: Simon & Schuster Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Simon & Schuster Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 163 Publication Date: December 02, 2008
Product Description: Finally, after four hit novels, Carrie Fisher comes clean (well, sort of ) with the crazy truth that is her life in her first-ever memoir. In Wishful Drinking, adapted from her one-woman stage show, Fisher reveals what it was really like to grow up a product of "Hollywood in-breeding," come of age on the set of a little movie called Star Wars, and become a cultural icon and bestselling action figure at the age of nineteen.
Intimate, hilarious, and sobering, Wishful Drinking is Fisher, looking at her life as she best remembers it (what do you expect after electroshock therapy?). It's an incredible tale: the child of Hollywood royalty -- Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher -- homewrecked by Elizabeth Taylor, marrying (then divorcing, then dating) Paul Simon, having her likeness merchandized on everything from Princess Leia shampoo to PEZ dispensers, learning the father of her daughter forgot to tell her he was gay, and ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed.
Wishful Drinking, the show, has been a runaway success. Entertainment Weekly declared it "drolly hysterical" and the Los Angeles Times called it a "Beverly Hills yard sale of juicy anecdotes." This is Carrie Fisher at her best -- revealing her worst. She tells her true and outrageous story of her bizarre reality with her inimitable wit, unabashed self-deprecation, and buoyant, infectious humor.
Quick funny read. I laughed outloud (or aloud?) a lot when reading this. She gives readers a view into her crazy ina way that makes you feel like she ahs the same crazy we all have, well she might have a tad more, but you love her for it! Shorter book-quick read.
Carrie Fisher Finds Humor in Her Troubles Aside from that weird Princess Leia hairstyle, baby-boomer Carrie Fisher seemed to have everything:
*Celebrity parents. Let's call them the '50s Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. *Starring role in a cult-classic movie at 19. Who hasn't seen Star Wars? *Brilliant singer-songwriter husband with mega-hits like "The Sound of Silence." What a cute couple! They were even the same height.
So what went wrong?
Continue reading this review at The Boomer Brief website.
Disappointing, sarcastic performance. Though touted as a memoir - this really isn't one. Instead, it's the written version of Carrie Fisher's stand-up comedy show. Given that, it lacks any depth or real insight. (I wasn't actually aware she was a comedian, and although the material may come off better when presented live by her - I didn't find it all that funny.)
Mostly this reads as a collection of what she feels are her most clever lines about her life. Dripping with sarcasm, she uses herself, her family, friends and events as often mean-edged punchlines. While there's no doubt she's clever - in this one she works too hard at being clever just for the sake of cleverness.
It's a short read though, and filled with pictures. Given the lack of substance this is probably a good thing.
Bottom Line: Disappointing written form of a not-so-terribly-funny comedy show. Really only good for her dedicated fans.
Star Bores Carrie Fisher is sinking faster than the Titanic. This book handles and reads like a self-published book by anyone in anytown U.S.A. As a media darling, she owes it to her fans to produce something worthwhile or not at all. Blame should go to the agent and publisher as well, but I guess everyone is in it for the almighty dollar and not concerned with producing readable art worth $20.00. Carrie seems to be in some kind of crisis mode (appearance at the Tony Awards). She was unrecognizable with her weight gain. Bipolar flares horrendously during menopause and I fear that has happened to her. Perhaps her next book will be sassy one liners on hot flashes and diet gurus. I gave up on this book halfway through and went on to read Chelsea Handler's book.
Double Edged Drollery that is Unexpectedly Optimistic 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.
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