Why can’t books by our former idols be better?
At the risk of sounding like Carrie Bradshaw, I can’t help but wonder why more of my childhood idols aren’t following the Andre Agassi model—hiring a brilliant ghostwriter and offering up some much-desired truths. Consider those people whose images we painstakingly cut out of BOP magazine and taped to our walls and how much we wanted to be them: if one of them wrote a real confessional, would we not all rush to buy it? But I can’t think of one example. No one seems to want to go bare bones.
What everyone does want to do is give advice. Exhibit A is Shannen Doherty’s “Badass.” I happen to like the title—that is, I liked it before I combed through the book and quickly realized that she uses the word so much that it becomes anodyne (on one randomly chosen page it pops up nine times). But here’s the real problem: fans want something with teeth. Doherty was a lead in “Heathers,” for crying out loud! She writes, in “Badass,” that the persona of her “Beverly Hills 90210” character spilled over into real life. “So I became ‘Brenda the Bad Witch.’” Shannen, that’s what we want to hear about. Tell us. Instead, we get such insights as these:
These are mixed in with lots of passages on the importance of—what else—confidence. I hate that I’m snubbing Shannen Doherty’s book. But I don’t want her advice. I want to know what the set of “Heathers” was like. How many of the ladies had their wee teen-age hearts broken by Christian Slater? Were Ram and Kurt lovers in real life? Did she actually see the sailboat in “Mallrats”? And the real question: Luke or Jason? Can’t Ms. Doherty turn what may be painful memories into catharsis—as well as candy for her loyal Gen-X fans?
Shannen wasn’t my real idol—just, you know, a badass I admired. My idol was Molly Ringwald. “Sixteen Candles” was my “Midnight Cowboy.” I had all her movies on VHS, a pair of white lace-up boots, and a hideous pink sweatsuit with flowers all over it that I thought looked Andie Walsh-esque.
Molly Ringwald can write. Her op-ed in the New York Times after John Hughes’s death was wonderful. In it, she writes about how fun it was to work with him: “The concerts he took us to (the blues great Junior Wells at Kingston Mines in Chicago), the endless mixed tapes he made for us and, most of all, the work itself. It doesn’t even seem like you should be able to call it ‘work’ because we enjoyed it so much.” Not only was the op-ed a peek into a world that I’d wanted to see inside for ages, but it was raw, bittersweet, and candid.
Too bad “Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick,” Ringwald’s first book, is essentially an advice book. A profile of Ringwald in the Times calls it “equal parts memoir and girlfriend-y guide to girlfriend-y things.” Sure, there are some personal anecdotes, but not of the sort Ringwald displayed in her Hughes op-ed. There are sections on skin care, friendships, and the joys of being single. And, of course, confidence. “This book is about celebrating turning forty and being the sexiest, funniest, smartest, best-dressed, and most confident woman you can be,” Ringwald writes. Some of the book is charming: “When you’re a teenager, you’re forever thinking: Do they like me? When you’re a grown-up, as anyone over the age of thirty can attest, the question becomes: Do I like them?” And after naming her favorite lipsticks, Ringwald throws in “application with cleavage optional,” a happy shout-out to “The Breakfast Club.” But those of us who are hoping for deeper insights into what it was like to be a Brat Packer are going to have to keep looking. Ringwald signed a two-book deal with her publishing house, and when I asked what her second book would be, a representative responded that it wasn’t determined yet; that because Ringwald is such a natural writer, they didn’t want to restrict her creativity. I agree—she really is a lovely writer. And maybe she’ll end up giving us what we want.
To complete the trifecta, Punky Brewster—er, Soleil Moon Frye—is supposed to have a memoir out this summer called “Happy Chaos.” She told CNN that she is “nostalgic” and loves “talking about my childhood and family so what better platform to share with others than a book close to my heart.” The book is described as a “memoir/manual.” One can only hope that it’ll include fun details about her bandannas and her relationship with the real-life Henry, but how can the word “manual” not give pause? It’s not too late, Punky. Tell us if you’re still friends with Mark-Paul Gosselaar.