Famesick
A Memoir
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- 9,99 €
Publisher Description
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this rowdy, frank reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and the bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain.
For the last decade, as she’s spent countless hours in doctor’s waiting rooms searching for diagnoses, treatments, and relief, being the owner and operator of Lena Dunham’s body has felt, as she puts it, “like towing a wrecked car across town at midnight.” It’s not easy dragging a wrecked car anywhere, much less to the Met Gala while sewn into a gold lamé corset. Or to the set of the hit show that you—as a twenty-five-year-old—are writing, directing, producing, and starring in. Or to the White House, the Golden Globes, or your publicist’s office to discuss the latest internet disaster. But Dunham does it—even if it means interminable hospital stays, vomiting in the bathroom when she’s meant to be meeting Oprah, or terrifying those closest to her—because she can no longer tell the difference between fighting to do what she loves and being a servant to her own ambition. All the while, she is holding out for a love that can withstand her personal and public challenges and, more than anything, yearning to feel like herself again—if only she could remember who that self was.
As Dunham takes us through her journey, tracking her rise to fame—from selling the pilot of Girls to the present—in three acts, it becomes clear that the spotlight casts long shadows, distorting the relationships she once held dear and isolating everyone in its glare. When an endless supply of drugs can’t protect you from pain—and begins to control your every move—being famous doesn’t stand a chance against the darker corners of the human experience.
In Famesick, Dunham asks herself what the cost of fulfilling her dreams has really been, and whether it was worth it. What she finds is deeper than physical relief, and more lasting, as she learns to live with what she can’t change and turn her regrets into wisdom that can carry her forward, as she reconnects to what, and who, she loves.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Lena Dunham became a 2010s icon thanks to her wit, humour, and willingness to share almost anything. She remains in top form in this deeply candid memoir of her entire personal and professional journey. And from dissociative episodes to a Klonopin addiction to her yearslong struggles with endometriosis and Ehlers–Danlos syndrome, it’s a journey that’s seldom easy. Dunham is intensely confessional here about the reality behind her landmark success with the TV series Girls as well as her close relationships. She doesn’t just open up about her five-year partnership with Jack Antonoff and later marriage to Luis Felber, but also digs into the details of many shorter, more complicated situationships, including one with the commitment-phobic man who inspired Adam Driver’s character on Girls. (Not to mention her complicated relationship with Driver himself.) If you’ve ever wondered what makes Dunham such a singular figure in the cultural landscape, Famesick contains the answer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this frank account, Girls cocreator Dunham (Not That Kind of Girl) takes an unsparing look at the physical and emotional costs of her first decade in the spotlight. Pre-Girls chapters hum with the energy of a downtown N.Y.C. memoir, with Dunham furiously writing scripts, casually collaborating with the pre-fame Safdie brothers, and having questionable sex. After Girls enters the picture in 2011, the book's three central relationships click into focus: the hot-and-cold one between Dunham and her Girls cocreator Jenni Konner; the gradually devastating one between Dunham and her then boyfriend Jack Antonoff; and the mercurial, often-debilitating one between Dunham and her own body. As she recounts surgery after surgery seeking relief from a complex set of chronic conditions including Ehlers Danlos syndrome and endometriosis, Dunham wincingly takes stock of all the ways she ignored physical, emotional, and spiritual signals to slow down, pushing through her pain until she developed an addiction to Klonopin, broke up with Konner and Antonoff, and moved to London to rebuild her life. Though the subject matter is heavy, Dunham's self-deprecating humor and penchant for gossipy anecdotes provide crucial counterweight. Readers put off by the author's past brashness need not apply, but fans of Girls and Dunham's previous book will be more than satisfied.
