Postcards from the Edge

Well fuck me. That was incredible. Who knew Carrie Fisher could write like that?

I adored this book. The characters are so human and relatable despite living in an almost completely unrelatable Hollywood fantasy land.

I can see lots of people not liking this book, the other reviews are certainly mixed. But, if you've ever been fucked up in the head and have ever found being a human and simple existing a baffling and troublesome experience then this is for you. It's all about being a mess and failing and getting help and struggling to get anywhere and accidentally succeeding, and it's so engrossing and moorish.

It's witty, sharp, insightful, uplifting and really nice and wonderfully encouraging. 6 stars, will read again.

as my wife so eloquently said, "Carrie Fisher reads like butter", and she's right.

Fisher's characters are detestable at time, relatable at others, hurtling through their lives at a breakneck pace, unsure of everything and everyone around them. Fisher manages to make the most astute observations.

Like the fact that they have ex drug addicts to counsel current drug addicts, as if all you need to counsel someone is to not have done drugs for a while. Or the fact that they call Hollywood tinseltown, as if it is a town, with a general store, a postbox and one main street.

This is about Suzanne Vale, an actress, and her time in rehab (and everything after that). She writes characters well and dialogue even better.

Carrie Fisher’s novel, Postcards from the Edge, adapts elements from her own life in telling the story of Suzanne Vale, an actress who’s returning to life after a drug overdose. Fisher divides the novel into five sections, with the first section describing rehab from different perspectives through inner monologue and journal exercises. In the second section, Fisher portrays Suzanne meeting with a film producer on a date through monologue and dialogue, without any other description. In the last three sections, Fisher uses third-person narrative to tell how Suzanne begins work on a film while staying with her grandparents, going through a “normal” week, and beginning a relationship with an author.

Throughout the story, Fisher show more grapples with several issues. Drug abuse and overdose forms a through line to the narrative, but Fisher uses the character Suzanne to convey the feeling of not being in control of life or never trusting happiness even when one has it, so that a person keeps looking for the next momentary joy, be it junk food, shopping, or drugs. Fisher writes, “I’ve been up, and I always felt like a trespasser. A transient at the top. I’ve got a visa for happiness, but for sadness I’ve got a lifetime pass. I shot through my twenties like a luminous thread through a dark needle, blasting toward my destination: Nowhere” (pg. 16). Even when Suzanne appears to have found happiness, she doesn’t trust it. Like most of Fisher’s novels, the work is semi-autobiographical and, in light of Fisher’s passing in 2016, seems all the more insightful. Fisher later adapted the novel as a screenplay for a film directed by Mike Nichols in 1990. show less

This was funny while equally well making me grateful for my life as it is. This is clearly semi-autobiographical and painful in places, but ultimately upbeat and hopeful in tone.

It's dated and heavy on a rarified lifestyle. but Fisher is deadly funny. I'm glad she turned to memoir and essay: she is not strong on narrative. I appreciate her honesty, humor, and insight especially into addiction and self-image.

I. Loved. This.

As a psychologist with my own personal experiences with drugs, I can say that Fisher's "voice" is so realistic in describing the actual drug experience that I felt I was reliving all of it! The rationalizing, the relationships- with "normal" people and with therapy- she absolutely nailed it.

Not to mention it is incredibly smart and funny, and the end is appropriately cynical rather than They lived happily ever after.

Anyone that is considering going into addictions counseling or has a healthy hold on their own addictions and wants to feel like you have a friend in Fisher- well this one is for you.

And I would be remiss if I said that doesn't change my opinion of her as an actor.

With her recent passing, I thought it was finally (well, past) time to read Carrie Fisher's books. So, I decided to start at the beginning with Postcards from the Edge, a novel about an actress who finds herself in rehab and recovering from a serious drug addiction.

I was long aware of the movie of the same name, and that it was based on a book by Carrie Fisher, but until now I had yet to either see the movie or read the book. Now that I've read the book, I expected something different based on what I thought I knew of the movie. The movie, if memory serves, focuses more on the relationship between mother and daughter. In the book, the mother is barely even present.

The book focuses more on Suzanne Vale and her efforts to recover from her show more drug addiction after being rushed to the hospital to get her stomach pumped. After a stint in rehab, told through Suzanne's journal entries, she finds herself back in the world as "that actress," and we follow along as she tries to figure herself out.

I related so much to Suzanne, even though I've never taken drugs. Basically, I feel like I have a lot of the same issues she does, but never found myself taking narcotics to hide from them. Typically I just sleep. As it turns out, at one point, so does she!

I really do love Fisher's writing style. It's very conversational, especially when we get a look inside Alex's head as he comes to grip with the fact that he does, in point of fact, have a drug problem and does, in point of fact, need to be in rehab with "these people." I was expecting another meeting between Alex and Suzanne before his movie was produced, but it's probably for the best that there wasn't. It certainly wouldn't have gone well for Alex.

There's an unfortunate part of myself that relates strongly to Alex, and I hate that. He's everything I don't want to be, but in some ways feel that I am. Then again, maybe that's the point of him.

Anyway, love my Space Mom and so glad I'm finally reading her books. show less