This Rediscover originally ran last January. We are running it again in light of Carrie Fisher's posthumous win at last night's Grammy Awards for The Princess Diarist, narrated by the author and her daughter, Billie Lourd (Penguin Audio), for Best Spoken Word Album.
Carrie Fisher's death dims the many hopes of Star Wars fans eager to see her continued portrayal of Princess Leia in the Disney-revived franchise. Fisher's passing also marks the loss of a talented author, screenwriter and humorist, whose work includes candid depictions of her struggles with bipolar disorder and drug addiction. She died a week after suffering medical complications on a flight home from the European leg of her book tour for The Princess Diarist (Blue Rider Press), a memoir chronicling the making of the first Star Wars movie, A New Hope, including her affair with married co-star Harrison Ford.
Wishful Drinking (2008), based on her one-woman play of the same name, and Shockaholic (2011) were the first of Fisher's humorous nonfiction memoirs, but not the first time she shined a lighthearted light on her sometimes dark past. Published by Simon & Schuster in 1987, Postcards from the Edge is a semi-autobiographical novel about an actress trying to remain sober after a drug overdose. It tells the tale of Suzanne Vale (played by Meryl Streep in the 1990 film adaptation) through epistolary postcards and letters, monologues and, finally, in third-person narration as the actress exits rehab and navigates new relationships and professional pitfalls. It was last published in 2010 ($16, 9781439194003). --Tobias Mutter