Carrie Fisher's The Best Awful is an elliptical work. That's not a compliment. I mean it literally. She uses ellipses with something bordering on a pathological condition ... and it does ... nothing ... for an already doomed book. That's not as bad as her use of the em dash. Now that's really something. Everywhere you go, the em dash lurks, ready to--pounce.
Call me needlessly fussy, but such over-use of punctuation isn't just an atrocity. It reflects a want of skill and even care. It conveys uncertainty of thought and craft. It's invariably distracting and frequently superfluous.
One can only hope that this book is not meant to mirror her own life, though certainly the parallels are inescapable. Like her protagonist, Suzanne Vale, Fisher has battled a broken home, several odd relationships and a rainbow of substance abuse. I didn't like Postcards From the Edge and I like this 'sequel' considerably less. Ok, she was sort of cute as the feisty twisted-mouthed Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies, despite the ridiculous Danish pastries clapped to her ears, but the journey from that cinematic puerility to accomplished authorship isn't easy. Fisher is a singularly poor traveller.
You know you're in serious trouble the moment you start skimming the book. There is an acknowledgements page. Fine. But hold on. There's a second acknowledgments page, too, at the end of the book. Neither is remotely comprehensible.
For my brother, Todd--we'll always have lockup. Remember that time Debbie got pregnant with us and our whole lives happened?...
I'm not worthy (my name is Lisa).
...
For Kim Painter--for the translation, transcribing, train spotting and lap dancing.
...
For Tracey and Johnny--thank you both so --bullocks--much for your continued--tits tits tits--support. Without the two of you--cockring--these lingering coughs would be more difficult to--wanker--bear.
What on earth is this supposed to mean? More importantly, who cares? And, just by the way, it's bollocks not bullocks. The latter are draught animals. This is pretty much an indicator of what follows (or even what precedes if you take into account the totally incomprehensible title). Fisher scales great heights in demonstrating just how irritatingly over-precious she can be. Even the 'About the Author' isn't spared: "...[S]he has a daughter, Billie. They want to see the aurora borealis." Well, golly, gee, isn't that the sweetest.
The Best Awful brings back Suzanne Vale, she of Postcards From the Edge notoriety. Vale is, very early on, a 'breadwinner with a very yang personality'. She opens the proceedings with a spin on an old Woody Allen line ("My wife left me for another woman"). Her husband, also the father of her daughter, leaves her for another man. Vale comforts herself with bipolar medication. Vale's anguish, if you can call it that, arises from her failure to detect her husband's sexual preferences. This seriously dents her self-esteem. Apparently, this is a must-have skill for all married women. Having discovered her shortcomings in that department, Vale sets out to compensate by engaging in determinedly heterosexual sex and promptly runs through three men including (but of course) one who is several years younger. Unsurprisingly, this does nothing either for Vale or the narrative and Fisher shifts into four-wheel substance-abuse overdrive in (but of course) Tijuana among other places. That can't be sustained either so it's back to LA and the location scouts have now zeroed in on a psychiatric clinic. But how to get Vale there? The answer leaps to mind: An overdose (but of course). By now, we've reached a total dead end and Fisher, evidently scrabbling for some foothold to drag the book out of this hole, settles for a pseudo-Harlequin Romance finale which I'd love to wreck here but won't.
Article comments
1 - Keilantra
I completely disagree with this. The Best Awful is wordy, yes, may have excessive punctuation, but if you look at it as a whole, that craftmanship of this novel is outstanding. I have never been so touched by a novel in so many ways before. Perhaps it is because you mere mortals have never felt what Fisher so stunningly describes... oh so tongue in cheek!
It was some sort of echo for me
2 - Vita
I haven't read the book, but I love this review! It almost makes me want to read the book for a sort of masochistic--thrill. Gosh. And you're right about bullocks/bollocks.