Brat
An '80s Story
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3.5 • 13 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
From an actor and director who got his start as a member of the Hollywood Brat Back, an emotionally poignant memoir, perfect for fans of Patti Smith's Just Kids and Rob Lowe's Stories I Only Tell My Friends. The inspiration for the Hulu documentary.
Everyone knows Andrew McCarthy from his iconic movie roles in Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo's Fire, Weekend at Bernie's, and Less than Zero. Part of the legendary Brat Pack (including Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, and Demi Moore), his filmography has come to represent both a genre of film and an era of pop culture.
In Brat, McCarthy focuses on that singular moment in time. The result is a revealing look at coming of age in a maelstrom, reckoning with conflicted ambition, innocence, addiction, and masculinity. 1980s New York City is brought to vivid life in these pages, from scoring loose joints in Washington Square Park to skipping school in favor of the dark revival houses of the Village—where he fell in love with the movies that would change his life.
Filled with personal revelations of innocence lost to heady days in Hollywood with John Hughes and an iconic cast of characters, Brat is a surprising and intimate story of an outsider caught up in a most unwitting success.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
If you identified with Kevin in St. Elmo’s Fire or crushed on Blane in Pretty in Pink, you’ll love Andrew McCarthy’s wonderful autobiography. The actor’s account is candid and insightful right from the get-go, when he reveals that the sensitivity of his characters was born out of turbulence at home, which included the stress of his accountant father getting mixed up in organized crime. McCarthy’s love for his profession comes through loud and clear—we were fascinated to learn that even though he made his name in the iconic teen movies of the 1980s, his heart has always belonged to the New York theater scene. Whether he’s addressing his successes or his failures, McCarthy brings the kind of charm and humor that makes people love revisiting John Hughes’ modern movie classics. You don’t have to be a Gen Xer to love this witty memoir.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The star of seminal 1980s coming-of-age movies St. Elmo's Fire and Pretty in Pink looks back on a decade that was more angsty for him than for his characters in this heartfelt memoir. Actor McCarthy (The Longest Way Home) revisits many raucous showbiz indignities—"my first day on the set of a feature film was spent in bra and panties"—and delves into the gnawing anxieties behind his heart-throb exterior: a sullen aloofness that masked his fear at auditions; spiraling alcoholism; loneliness in an L.A., where he "felt exposed and vulnerable on the deserted streets"; alienation on the coked-up set of Less Than Zero, where "the mood on the shoot turned from dark to nefarious" with a script "full of hate and self-degradation." McCarthy writes evocatively of his insecurities and dysfunctions—"I felt as if I existed behind a layer of opaque plexiglass... which would only clear when I took a drink"—but also of the high points when he felt "the simple joy at being there, at being alive and young" in front of the camera. McCarthy is clear-eyed and unsparing about Hollywood but takes the emotional intensity of the actor's craft and life seriously. The result is a riveting portrait of the artist as a young man. Photos.
