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Review 14: Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

Wishful Drinking
I think we all have it in us to romanticise oblivion. The alcoholic writer; the drugged-up band; the tubby-custardised Teletubbies. It’s easy to see the excess and the self-disregard as edgy, rather than embrace what it would be like to actually be like to be in (or around someone in) that situation – desperate, bleak, sad. Wishful Drinking performs an odd tightrope act across this cultural tension.

The late Carrie Fisher wrote this to be performed as a one-woman show, and the sense of that performative element permeates the book. The language is casual and discursive, and a wry, dark sarcasm rivets the words to the pages throughout. This isn’t a lecture, it’s a conversation (although admittedly a one-way one, no matter how hard I tried).

What this also means is that Fisher is able to make her reactions very human. It’s easier to see her wry reactions to very dark and troubling things as blasé, but by staying as open and direct with the reader as she does, she’s able to maintain her connection to darker depths, which lends a sadness to her jokes and makes them more than surface.

Which isn’t to say it’s all gloom and doom with glitter on. This is a genuinely fun and funny read. There’s not much reference, surprisingly, to Star Wars – it feels like the annoying, tagalong little brother that she keeps trying to shake – but there are enough lighter moments to make this an easier read than you’d expect from a book about manic-depression and addiction. There are also plenty of grim bits, unrelated to her personal mental health but deeply related to the mental health of the rest of the world, with fans eager to let her know just how often they pleasured themselves thinking about her and so on. She gives these fairly short shrift, as you’d expect of gosh-darned General Leia.

The other thing you come away with is a good understanding of just how weird and messed up the Hollywood elite is. The incestuous co-mingling, and the unrealistic lifestyle expectations, are pretty much everything you’d expect of America’s unofficial royalty. It’s a wonder any of their kids have unwebbed fingers at all.

Overall, I found this a pretty poignant read, a woman who’s doing what she can to be fully open about her demons, using humour to gain access to them. If that’s what you’re looking for, go for it. If you’re looking for a ton of wacky anecdotes about Mark Hamill and Jabba the Hutt, you’ll be more disappointed. But if that’s your game, don't worry, I hear there's a shedload of that stuff on YouTube.

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