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Carrie Fisher's The Best Awful returns Postcards from the Edge fans to the often hilarious, occasionally tragic, but always captivating world of Suzanne Vale, a bi-polar, celebrity talk show host with a six-year old daughter, a gay ex-husband, an aging starlet mother, and an unbreakable will to survive. After Suzanne stops taking her medication, Fisher treats us to the wild, hysterical ride that follows Suzanne's manic episodes, including a search for Oxycontin in Tijuana with her tattoo artist and a new house guest in the form of Hoyt, a clinically depressed patient Suzanne picks up at her psychopharmacologist's office. Even after the inevitable psychotic break lands Suzanne at Shady Lanes, where she's the "latest loony to hit the bin," Fisher never deviates from her trademark wit and uncanny ability to find truth in every irony:
You entered the hospital broken, found some other like broken patient people, and once in their company, looked down on the other more pathetic inhabitants of the bin you shared, those flying even lower than you and your lo-flung co-conspirators...
An insider's look at the Hollywood most of us only read about in supermarket checkout lines, The Best Awful doesn't strive to be anything other than what it is--a rambunctious, honest, wise-cracking trip to rock bottom and back again. Supporting characters are just that, a backdrop against whom Suzanne hopes to find a plausible sense of self. For readers who can accept this novel for what it is, The Best Awful promises over 250 pages of uninhibited entertainment. --Gisele Toueg
From Publishers Weekly
The inimitable Suzanne Vale returns to battle her demons (drugs, bipolar disorder and Hollywood self-obsession) in actress and screenwriter Fisher's blackly comic sequel to Postcards from the Edge. Leland Franklin, a studio executive whose protectiveness helped Suzanne find her "far-flung best self," dumps her-for a man-when their beloved daughter, Honey, is three, and Suzanne is left "with a child, a grudge, and a bright phosphorous gnaw of pain glowing in the hot spot of her chest." Three years later, Suzanne is still struggling. Though born into show business, then a film star, now a successful talk show hostess (much like her creator), it's Suzanne's love for Honey that keeps her going-oh, and prescription drugs. She has a friend in Craig, a fellow court jester and "DNA jackpot" who pulls her out of tight spots, each "one more in a long line of bad judgment calls." After Suzanne and a tattoo artist named Tony hit Tijuana in a quest for Oxycontin, for example, Craig comes to her rescue. But the trip has "pulled crazy closer to her," and Suzanne experiences a psychotic break that lands her in the Shady Lanes loony bin. Pharmacological facts and scenes from group therapy are revealed with Fischer's trademark irony and nonstop wisecracks. Rather than hide the painful truths of mental disorders, her humor serves to highlight them. Fischer contrives a Hollywood happy ending for Suzanne and Honey, a sweet child who will win readers' hearts, but a little joy amid all the craziness is just what the doctor ordered.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Library Journal
Having done drug addiction, romance, and motherhood, Fisher-as-novelist takes on mental breakdown. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Most reviewers praise The Best Awful for its nerve-wracking depiction of insanity and commend Fisher for her honesty. Though she's a sharp and witty writer throughout the novel, Fisher drops a few story lines during her narrator's frenzied journey and cheats readers out of a realistic ending. Unlike Postcards, this sequel does not address Hollywood self-absorption, but focuses solely on Suzanne, with less success. "The deceptive banality of the plot obscures for a while the reality that The Best Awful is about agony," notes The Washington Post. And Fisher understands pain very well. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
From AudioFile
POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE thrust its main character, Suzanne Vale, into the public eye. Vale is back, edgy and in the throes of self-medication for her roller-coaster existence as the single mother of a young daughter. The author is likely the best narrator to do justice to the irreverent and dark humor of this book. She plumbs the depths of Vale's depression, her manic moments, and her attempts to find some way to function meaningfully between them. Fisher's affection for Vale and her struggles to remain sane mean there is always some light and humor in Vale's otherwise harsh world. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
In this somewhat tepid sequel, Fisher revisits Suzanne Vale, the heroine of her popular novel (and subsequent movie) Postcards from the Edge (1989). Suzanne still doesn't have it together; she's reeling from her divorce from Leland, who seemed so perfect for her except for the fact that he is gay. They remain friends, or at least cordial, because of their daughter, Honey. Suzanne hasn't had sex in four years, and she attempts to remedy that situation, first with an aging matinee idol and then with a handsome young stud. Neither fling leaves her fulfilled. Suzanne's growing ennui and dissatisfaction lead her to stop taking her medication for manic depression, and she spirals downward. She gets a tattoo, invites a depressed patient she meets at her doctor's office to move in with her, and takes off with an ex-con on a drug spree in Tijuana. After she hits rock bottom, her friends check her into a mental hospital, hoping she can sort out her issues and get the medication she needs to function. Fisher's strengths lie in her witty dialogue and her lambasting of Hollywood at its most shallow, but her characters never quite gel like they should. Fans of Postcards from the Edge might enjoy this, but they also might be left wishing for more insight into Suzanne. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
People No-holds-barred humor and snappy banter.
Vanity Fair Carrie Fisher [is] one of our most painfully hilarious correspondents from the edge of sanity.
Review
Vanity Fair Carrie Fisher [is] one of our most painfully hilarious correspondents from the edge of sanity.
Book Description
When we left Suzanne Vale at the end of Carrie Fisher's bestselling Postcards from the Edge, she had survived drug abuse, rehab, and Hollywood celebrity. The Best Awful takes Suzanne back to the edge with a new set of troubles -- not the least of which is that her studio executive husband turned out to be gay and has left her for a man. Lonely for a man herself, Suzanne decides that her medication is cramping her style, and she goes off her meds -- with disastrous results. The "manic" side of the illness convinces her it would be a good idea to get a tattoo, cut off her hair, and head to Mexico with a burly ex-con and a stash of OxyContin. As she wakes up in Tijuana, the "depressive" side kicks in, leading Suzanne through a series of surreal psychotic episodes before landing her in a mental hospital. With the help of her movie star mom, a circle of friends, and even her ex-husband, she begins the long journey back to sanity. Based on a truant's story, The Best Awful is by turns highly comic and darkly tragic, a roller-coaster ride through the dizzying highs and crushing lows of manic depression, yet containing all the fast and furious wit that made Postcards from the Edge both a bestselling novel and a hit movie.
About the Author
Carrie Fisher is the author of the bestsellers Postcards from the Edge, Surrender the Pink, and Delusions of Grandma. She has a daughter, Billie. They want to see the aurora borealis.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One: The Man That Got the Man That Got Away Suzanne Vale had a problem, and it was the one she least liked thinking about: She'd had a child with someone who forgot to tell her he was gay. He forgot to tell her, and she forgot to notice. He might've forgotten to mention it because he'd hoped she would save him. Making him into a normal "family man" with a wife and a child and a job running a studio. And hadn't she wanted to be saved from certain things also? From life alone? From being childless? From a life that might've looked a little sad from the outside? So, merging their secret hopes for rescue, they'd had a baby with their unwritten pact of androgyny, an androgyny that informed the life they lived out loud. Suzanne had never seen herself as what she called a squeezy tilty girl. She was a breadwinner with a very yang personality. A person who wore a lot of severely tailored little black suits. And Leland Franklin would never be called up for the butch patrol. Not that he was effeminate in any way -- far from it. Suzanne's pregnancy had betrayed their pact, however, transforming her into a girl -- a vulnerable woman even -- leaving Leland to be what he couldn't: a straight and certain man...certain of his sexuality anyway. Looking back, perhaps Suzanne should've guessed based on his affection for Biedermeier furniture or even his fastidiousness with his grooming...she should've known when, toward the end, he'd begun rigorously attending a gym, perfecting a body she knew wasn't being perfected for her. Their alliance had broken under the strain of their attempt at normalcy gone wrong. When their daughter Honey was three, Leland had left her for a man, though initially this was not what he'd said. He'd said he was leaving because Suzanne was crazy. Kept him up all night. Refused to take her bipolar medication, and she would talk talk talk...talk all the time. Maybe she'd talked him out of staying with her. Won the argument for why to leave her without meaning to. After Leland had left -- right after, when feelings were still high, with winds of hurt and blame storming out of her Cape Fear -- he'd mentioned to Suzanne late one evening in a particularly blistering phone call that she might've helped turn him gay, "By taking all that codeine again!" to which Suzanne replied tearfully, "Oh, I'm sorry -- I hadn't read that part of the warning on the label! I thought it said heavy machinery, not homosexuality! Here I could have been driving those big farmyard tractors all along!" and she'd slammed the phone down, red-faced and weeping. After the dust from his departure had settled, she'd found herself with a child, a grudge, and a bright phosphorus gnaw of pain glowing in the hot spot of her chest. It turned out he'd left her with this tender wound of love for him, a warm ache informing her she'd accidently grown to care. He'd outlasted her disinclination to ever love deeply, winning the race to the end of her arm's-length way of figuring everything out until it couldn't hurt her again. Unbeknownst to her, she'd come to look at him with lively eyes tenderized pink with vulnerability. She longed for the return of Leland's subtle way of patrolling her murky borders, guarding her from her own less than commendable instincts. Protecting her when he could from all that stood between her and her far-flung best self, drawing her to the center of his uncrackable safekeeping. While she'd spent every last hard-earned dollar of her energy charming those she met so that they would like her, be amused by her, think her smart, or all three, Leland would do some other neat trick all but invisible to her trained seal eye. He would manage the room, make its occupants comfortable, well taken care of, at ease. He would find out a little about each person, an ambassador of good will trying to make certain everyone aboard his ship was seaworthy. His was a miracle of care, concern, and control. And for the life of her, Suzanne could never figure out how it was done -- it took her years to realize that it was done -- but she admired it with a kind of awe before she knew and ever after. This was Leland's gift: a way with people, a way of making their burdens lighter and their days a little less dark. Suzanne would tickle you and make you laugh and like her; Leland would tuck you in bed for the night -- and wake you up with juice and coffee the next morning. Suzanne wanted you to have a good experience of her -- "Did you hear that hilarious thing she said about her father? 'What you see is what you don't get'!" Leland wanted you to have a good experience of yourself, courtesy of him. Sure, you'd come away with a good memory or two of Suzanne, but spend a single afternoon with Leland and you'd want to float down through all time with him, parented by him, partnering with him, and throwing all your business his way. Leland had cared for her and she'd somehow not seen it working its subtle charm on her. She didn't realize she needed tending like some exotic fragile flower. She had always been self-contained, no? Making her all but impervious to most of the care he'd painstakingly shown to her. Smoothing her brow, picking up her pieces each time she broke down and cried. Hospital Man, so careful with her, watching over her while she slept and making sure she was safe and warm. Who knew she'd come to count on the net he'd always put beneath her not so infrequent falls? No one had ever attended to her needs in quite this way. How could she have missed it happening? What had made him tick, and why couldn't her tock ever quite manage that beat? While he'd busied himself with breaking her falls, Suzanne had blundered on, chatting gaily, never slowing enough to notice the charm he was working on her life, her frantic ways. Still and all, she'd paused sufficiently to have a child with him, paying tribute to the thing in their union that smacked of mutual concern and trust -- a trust accompanied by what she understood later as the closest thing she might have come to love. For the next three years, she'd taken advantage of him and giddily run with it straight through center, careless of his ministrations, not noticing his restless dissatisfaction. Or taking it for something else, something annoyingly in her way. She'd given him little choice but to move on to the thing in his nature that would inevitably capture his attention's bright flag. Assuming she'd loved him offhandedly, even cavalierly, how could she know that down deep, her once-tended flower was turning more and more toward the warm comfort of his too-distant sun, growing this subtle devotion to him, strung to his tuning, guided by his star. Leland had provided her with something vital, something she'd come to depend on as utterly as oxygen. Which she only realized, of course, once it turned up missing. Oh, horrible! Having subtly outsmarted her sensors, Leland had now passed into the dark world of "Someone She'd Inadvertently Come to Need." First he'd slipped the mickey of their daughter Honey into her, and now, leaving her drunk with a love she'd misrepresented both to herself and anyone who'd listen, he'd tiptoed out the door in search of something saner and more sensible for himself. Need. Ugly need with its scowling face, its features twisted with regret and love gone awry, now leered at her from the darkness when she'd wake into this place she couldn't imagine was any longer really her life. Ugh! Disfigured by loss, she grieved for Honey's father. "Come back!" she wanted to implore him. "Give me myself back -- the me I was with you -- and I'll be good this time, I promise! You can even date men! I'll look the other way, like they do in Europe! I'll do anything you say! Just stay...please...just stay with me...help me breathe!" But it was too late. Once escaped, she knew he'd never return. It had been difficult enough for him to pull himself away in the first place, away from his only child and greatest joy. No, once away, he would stay there, leaving her with this outsized love now grown larger and unwieldy as a goiter, magnified by rejection, humiliation, and desperate aging-girl despair. She'd just have to wait to outlast this worst aspect of being human, for the wound of rejection and self-incrimination to heal. Her mother Doris had been wonderful after Leland had gone. She'd come over and fluffed up Suzanne's pillows and made her cold toast. "You're just like me, dear. We can't pick men," Doris said matter-of-factly, sitting on the edge of Suzanne's bed and brushing her daughter's hair back from her frowning forehead. Doris Mann was a famous fifties movie icon whose three failed marriage had left her publicly humiliated, bankrupted, and bankrupted again. "Anyway, think of it this way; we've had every kind of man in this family. We've had horse thieves and alcoholics and one-man bands and singers -- but this is our first homosexual!" She punctuated her congratulatory speech with raised eyebrows and trademark grin and outflung arms. At least the whole situation was great for Suzanne's weight, this "Diet of the Disappearing Dad." Remember how fat she'd gotten when she was pregnant with Honey? And how it had hung around afterward, no matter what she did? Layers of fat clinging to her like frightened tenants in dark houses when the ghosts come out. Well, after Leland left, about twenty pounds or so of her must have missed him, too, because little by little, it took leave of her as well. Perhaps leaving her for a man also. Perhaps there was some newly fat guy roaming around with her former pounds encircling him lovingly. Suzanne had a Teflon quality that summer. Things would come unstuck from her surface and jump free, leaving her even more alone. Items began to show up missing around her home, and not just the usual things like glasses, pens, and cameras. Now it was books, a disc player, and finally even a dog. Just couldn't be found. Boom! Disappeared one day. Was it something she'd said? Or maybe a bad hairstyle or an overabundance of makeup? How had she become this jumping-off point, so easy to leave? And how did Leland's boyfriend Nick become the man that got this lovely man that got away from her? Honey turned four, then five, then six. And still Suzanne kept on with the endless hashing and rehashing, going over what had happened, as if that was going to solve anything. As if that served any purpose other than getting her friends' eyes to glaze. "You've totally taken all the charm and romance out of self-pity for me, I'll tell you that for nothing," Suzanne's best friend Lucy told her one day. "Fuck off," she'd countered miserably, without moving her unseeing eyes from the television screen at the foot of her bed. "Hey, show me where off is, and I'll fuck there," Lucy had replied. Lucy wasn't the only one who was fed up listening to Suzanne -- she was just the most vocal about it. Everyone wanted the funny, untroubled version of their friend back. And finally so did Suzanne, she really and truly did. Surely the solution was to find something or someone to distract her. A Situation. Something or someone leading her to other things: tasks tacked neatly on a bulletin board. Plans. Completing one errand and onto the next, running like the wind toward something new. Stations of life, bridges to cross, stages to go through. Surely there were dragons to slay and fresh matters to tend to, until one day when she would escape from what had formerly been the matter with her, and would now be able to see it as simply her own jumping-off point. Copyright © 2003 by Deliquesce, Inc.
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