Fiction Ruined My Family …. by Jeanne Darst (Author)
I read an excerpt of this book in the latest American Vogue October issue and made me laugh out loud (which never happens !). Very well written and very funny.
“Jeanne Darst’s memoir about growing up in a hard-drinking family with big literary dreams is hilarious, heartbreaking, and inspiring.” Marie Claire
“High fives to Jeanne Darst for her tale of surviving an alkie blue-blood mom, a hard-drinking failed-writer dad, and her own inebriated performer/playwright/crummy-job dysfunction to write this seriously comic tell-all about her entanglements, with family, friend, and-of course-her bodacious self.” Elle
The youngest of four daughters in an old, celebrated St. Louis family of prominent journalists and politicians on one side, debutante balls and equestrian trophies on the other, Jeanne Darst grew up hearing stories of past grandeur. And as a young girl, the message she internalized was clear: while things might be a bit tight for us right now, it’s only temporary. Soon her father would sell the Great American Novel and reclaim the family’s former glory.
The family uproots and moves from St. Louis to New York. Jeanne’s father writes one novel, and then another, which don’t find publishers. This, combined with her mother’s burgeoning alcoholism — nightly booze- fueled weepathons reminiscing about her fancy childhood — lead to financial disaster and divorce. And as Jeanne becomes an adult, she is horrified to discover that she is not only a drinker like her mother, but a writer like her father.
Ultimately, Jeanne sets out to discover if a person can have the writing without the ruin, if it’s possible to be both sober and creative, ambitious and happy, a professional author and a parent.
Filled with brilliantly flawed, idiosyncratic characters and punctuated by Darst’s irreverent eye for absurdity, Fiction Ruined My Family is a lovingly told, wickedly funny portrait of an unconventional life.
$16 Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (September 29, 2011) Amazon.com
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