Patricia Bosworth's moving and raw The Men in My Life is a riveting memoir of family dysfunction, comparable to Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle and Brooke Hayward's Haywire.
This unsparing and superbly written follow-up to Bosworth's 1997 memoir, Anything Your Little Heart Desires, focuses on the years 1953 to 1964. At 20, she marries the first man she bedded--a volatile and physically abusive painter who distances her from her family and erodes her self-esteem. When her gay younger brother commits suicide, her family splinters further. "We remained a family full of terrible silences," she writes. Her lawyer father's escalating alcoholism and prescription drug addiction leads to several suicide attempts and unsuccessful rehabs stints before he also kills himself. Adrift from her family and reeling from grief, Bosworth focuses her attention on an acting career and is accepted into Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. She channels her suppressed emotions and forges friendships with Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Elaine Stritch and others.
Her bad romantic choices in men (including a married actor four years her father's senior), and a near-deadly abortion days before flying to Rome to film The Nun's Story opposite Audrey Hepburn, finally bring an epiphany. Although she had appeared in several Broadway productions, she realizes her true passion is writing. Her friendships with Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal point her toward this calling. Bosworth's memoir excels as both a searing and tragic family portrait and fascinating look at a budding stage career in the 1950s. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant