Fisher made her setbacks strengths

Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge Sheila Weller Sarah Crichton/fsg

Carrie Fisher had at least one thing in common with Princess Leia, the character that defined her career — a dry wit. “If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable” was Fisher’s “main maxim,” Sheila Weller notes in the biography Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge.

This engrossing, gracefully written, occasionally hagiographic book illustrates the motto, recounting numerous tales about how Fisher, who struggled with mental illness and addiction before her death in 2016, managed to find the funny in it all — and share that with audiences.

Members of Fisher’s family have reportedly disavowed this book as unauthorized. But it reads as definitive, drawing on interviews, media analysis and close readings of Fisher’s writing.

Fisher’s difficulties began early on. Among the early traumas was the breakup of her parents’ marriage. Her father, singer Eddie Fisher, deserted her mother, actress Debbie Reynolds, for Elizabeth Taylor when Carrie was a toddler, sparking a scandal.

After catapulting to her own fame as Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise, Fisher coped with substance abuse and bipolar disorder; a brief marriage to singer-songwriter Paul Simon; a relationship with agent Bryan Lourd, who left her for a man after fathering her daughter, Billie; and a public that sneered at her for becoming older and stouter than the royal who sent a hologram to Obi-wan Kenobi.

Fisher mined her life for fiction and non-fiction, most notably in the novel Postcards From the Edge. Her autobiographical one-woman show Wishful Drinking became a book and HBO special.

Along the way, Fisher gained a reputation as a latter-day Dorothy Parker. “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die” is one of many Fisher zingers quoted in this book.

Weller also shows how Fisher’s life touched on major issues of our day. Her honesty about her bipolar diagnosis and her accounts of electroshock therapy drew needed attention to mental health issues.

For the most part, this book doesn’t rave as much as it quotes others raving: Penny Marshall calling Fisher “brilliant,” Albert Brooks calling her “irresistible,” Richard Dreyfuss appreciating the way “she made everyone feel at home.”

It bears witness to Fisher’s strength, compassion, talent and ability to alchemize pain into art.