For Feisty Feminists

Book 33 in Cannonball Read 2

A review of Carrie Fisher’s Postcards From the Edge is hard to write, first because the book is so different, and second because you say ‘Carrie Fisher’ and people are already off on a tangent, and third because you say ‘movie with Meryl Streep’ and people are off on a bunch of other tangents. But Postcards From the Edge is absolutely lovely, wry, painfully true, and ultimately both deeply cynical and endlessly optimistic.

Postcards From the Edge centers around Suzanne Vale, an actress who has a drug problem. Although the book encompasses other characters, it is really about Suzanne. It starts as her diary in rehab; then switches to the thoughts of Alex, a young screenwriter in rehab who thinks he will work with Suzanne someday; then switches styles again to describe Suzanne’s experience in Hollywood in the third person; then ends in first person, but with a more traditional novelistic approach.

These changes in style and tone do not distract from the story of Suzanne, and the multiple views of her add complexity and depth. This is a good example of a literary device that adds to the story and characters, rather than drawing attention to itself.

Carrie Fisher also adapted the movie Postcards From the Edge (starring Meryl Streep, in one of my favorite performances from one of my favorite actresses) from her own novel, and the movie shares characters and  plot points, yet they are - to Fisher’s credit - different enough to be considered as separate entities. Both are lovely, wry, painfully true, and somehow deeply cynical and endlessly optimistic.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Cannonball Read. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.