Hi there!
Welcome to our April Intermission for Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking. Our intermissions will look at the book's first half and ongoing themes in the novel, as well as include our opinions and thoughts on it all! This is Brieanna's first re-read on our blog, and was chosen based on her preferences for books. She likes autobiographies and this is one she had already gone through, so it was time to look back at it. We found it interesting that both books we have re-read have been less interesting the second time around, for some reason - we decided it was noteworthy to include here! Enjoy the blog!
Trigger Warning: Death, Drugs, Sex, Firearms, Infidelity, Sexual Assault, Kidnapping
Overall
This book is super duper short, only a four-hour read, which is refreshing compared to our recent long reads. The first half of this book focuses mainly on Carrie's memories of her family growing up, especially in a Hollywood home. Ceraya hasn't liked this book so far. She likes the tone of how it is written because it's very casual and interesting. It wasn't how she had assumed an autobiography might sound. On the flip side, she's confused about what exactly the book is about. This book is not very linear, which makes this one confusing, and Ceraya prefers more linear novels and story lines.
We realized together that this book is essentially a live show Carrie performed, and therefore was written that way. It's one long comedy routine. This makes the book harder to get through. If not an exact copy - this book is the majority of her live production. Her humor is also not always in our wheelhouse. The theme of this book is non-sequitur - nothing is really connected to one story, these are all just memories compiled for entertainment.
Electro-Convulsive Therapy
We were surprised to find that the Introduction to this book was focused mainly on her Electro-Convulsive Therapy Treatments- which effectively erase part of your memories and rewire parts of your brain. We did know that she struggled with drugs and alcohol, but we didn't know that she underwent ECT to solve her problems.
She finds it comforting that she is not the only celebrity to receive these treatments for depression and addiction. Or the only person at all. The voicemail that her friend recorded for her is tragically sweet and she has lovely friends and family members that support her through this.
Hollywood Inbreeding & Family Memories
Learning about how much Carrie loved her mom and viewed her as a "Christmas morning" is just delightful. Hearing about how she and her brother saw their mother's transformation into a star as a magical event was incredibly heartwarming. Her relationship with her mom is lovely to hear about. Carrie and her brother being absolutely in love with their mother is not always a common thing to hear about from starlets in Hollywood, so, it's cool to hear about a positive discussion of family relationships, instead of something negative.
Hearing about how their father ran off with Elizabeth Taylor was a little sad too. And this leads us to Hollywood Inbreeding.
The relationships through scandal and the vapid crossing of relationship wires, and the strange people involved in it all, is genuinely wild.
Carrie's brother Todd accidentally shooting himself was genuinely hilarious. Of course, it wouldn't be as funny if he had died, but because the little shit survived, it's even funnier. The mother and daughter and babysitter hiding all of the paraphernalia in the home cracked us up.
Debbie having brought up that Carrie should have her ex-husband's child was literally insane. We read and re-read that paragraph over and over again, and couldn't get it through our brains. Debbie was wild herself, and maybe she got it from her own mother, based on what have read so far. As we've said in the past, and in this case it is presented as funny by Carrie, but mothers with unchecked mental illness create daughters with mental illness.
Hearing her dad's perspective that Carrie's mom Debbie was a lesbian, our opinion is that Debbie is an icon, whether a lesbian or not (and it really don't matter). And then hearing that Debbie was KIDNAPPED as a child was WILD. And hearing how the boy's father responded to his son's having kidnapped and sexually assaulted Debbie impressed us for the period and location it came from. It was the bare minimum, but we liked it. So far, a lot of stories have been more heartwarming than traumatizing, and we're interested in hearing more.
Hearing about all of the memories that Carrie has of her family was impressive. It sounds like her upbringing wasn't too bad. Her mother and brother were loving, and even though her dad was a little wonky, he was a character in her life too.
How Carrie Sees Herself
Carrie was surprised to see that drama-college was the best time of her life, and we were definitely NOT surprised. Both of us have done theatre in college and it was absolutely the best time of our lives when we were in it.
A lot of this first part of this novel made us think about how Carrie probably views herself. This probably is because we are young women too. She writes herself in as the viewer and admirer of her mother's beauty, but seems to think that she may not be as beautiful, and therefore must be something else. We hope this changes for the better.
Where We Go From Here
Carrie has just stepped into college, and as far as we can see, the next section has a lot to do with Star Wars, and Carrie's acting career. We're not too excited about this, but that's because we expect the same bullshit that we've heard from other actors. We don't expect to hear anything new, or any surprises. And because neither of us are super into Star Wars, we don't want to hear about all the acting bullshit, we want to hear about Carrie's internal life. We don't want to hear about the craziness around her, we want to hear about the craziness inside. Does that make sense?? We hope it does.
See you in the next one!
Ceraya & Brieanna
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