Postcards from the Edge

1987, 1990 Pocket Books movie tie-in edition
Carrie Fisher
Postcards from the Edge
Possibly bought newish for $4.95
Worn paperback
C

This semi-autobiographical novel is sometimes compared to Ephron's Heartburn, although I think the main similarity is that they both got turned into Meryl Streep movies that I still haven't seen.  Well, OK, and they're both full of upper-middle-class people whining.  Like Heartburn, it's sometimes sort of funny, probably funnier actually, but with descriptions of drug abuse and withdrawal, rather than thoughts on food.  And Suzanne's life in Hollywood is very shallow, so even if Fisher is parodying that, it was hard to take with no voices of sanity for contrast.  (Her "sensible" grandmother advises her to marry a boring guy, any boring guy, and learn to love/hate him.  It's like Sheila Levine lived and almost-died in vain.)

I might've liked the book better if Fisher had stuck to one perspective, rather than switching the narrative for awhile to a couple of guys who are interested in Suzanne.  Even when she's focusing on Suzanne, she can't decide between first and third person.  Maybe the book is meant to represent the fragmentation of addiction and/or Hollywood, but that doesn't make it entertaining, or enlightening.  I nonetheless went on to read Delusions of Grandma, which we'll get to in 1994.