Shockaholic

Shockaholic (2011) Carrie Fisher

This weekend I bought Carrie Fisher's new book, Shockaholic. She's already done four novels, all loosely based on her life, starting with her best known: 1987's Postcards From The Edge which was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep, Shirley McClaine, Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, and Richard Dreyfuss and directed by Mike Nichols (Dreyfuss is thanked on Postcard's acknowledgements page; he went through rehab around the same time that she did).

Around the same time that the Postcards movie came out, Fisher realeased her second novel, Surrender The Pink. I read in an old Entertainment Weekly interview that Steven Spielberg bought the movie rights before the book was even finished. Reading the novel you can see why there is no Surrender The Pink- The Motion Picture. I started reading with a lot of interest because the book is supposed to be based on Fisher's relationship with Paul Simon and the two of them are an odd pair that I find interesting. But the book is made up of the kind of dialogue that dragged down Postcards- the worst part of her first novel were the sections where the characters had converations about their feelings.

I haven't read the two newer novels, Delusions of Grandma from the 90s or The Best Awful from around 2005 but from what I understand Delusions is more of an invention and Awful is almost entirely drawn from real events in Fisher's life, from the birth of her daughter to her ex-husband leaving her for a man to her cable TV interview series to her opiate relapse (Oxycontin) to her stay in a mental hospital.

A couple years ago Fisher went on what she called her "one and a half woman show" Wishful Drinking and released a book based on that material. It was a great book with some interesting stories, but most people felt the same way I did: the book was too slim and most subjects were touched upon too briefly.

Her new book, kind of a Wishful Drinking II, is Shockaholic. While this one is also too slim (162 pages) it covers its subjects in more detail. In this case I wish there were more subjects and a little less detail. There are really only five main subjects: her ECT treatments, Michael Jackson, a 1985 blind date with Chris Dodd (plus Ted Kennedy), her step-father Harry Karl, and her father Eddie.

All of it is interesting, especially the MJ section, but I was hoping for more stories about the movies she made, and I don't mean Star Wars. I'd like to here about The 'burbs and The Time Guardian (though she does mention Hollywood Vice Squad and Liberty.

Anyway, while the book is needlessly vulgar in spots, it's well-worth reading and a lot of fun.



Note: The top image is the one that's on the cover of my book. Before Shockaholic was released I saw the bottom image on Amazon. I belive the bottom image was used on non-US editions of the book, but that's just a guess.