Fisher’s ‘Princess Diarist’ doesn’t dish enough
Police detective Karen Pirie returns in ‘Out of Bounds’
he Princess Diarist’ (Blue Rider
Press), by Carrie Fisher “I’ve spent so many years not telling the story of Harrison and me having an affair on the first ‘Star Wars’ movie that it’s difficult to know exactly how to tell it now,” Carrie Fisher announces on page 49 of her brisk but vague new memoir, “The Princess Diarist.”
“Excellent, here we go,” any solid fan of the real “Star Wars” movies (certainly not the prequels) will think, settling in for the literary equivalent of an ice-cream sundae of the more offbeat flavors.
But Fisher, who accepts that she will be known as Princess Leia until the end of time, lets the reader down. Having waited 40 years to publish what one expects to be a dishy tellall about the romance behind the iconic movie of a generation (that generation mournfully sandwiched between the baby boomers and millennials), the actress, writer and raconteur only offers a few wisps of the goods.
Fisher blames her hazy recall of the behindthe-scenes affair with Harrison Ford on the potent marijuana they smoked on their lost weekends between scenes. She also decides that “with uncharacteristic reservation and scruples that I quash any details” of their first weekend together. Sex is private, she says.
No problem, but she also draws the curtain over the interesting bits: their chemistry, their conversations, her point-blank impressions of a man poised to become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
Or maybe we’re supposed to believe, as she insists, that Ford just didn’t talk a lot when they were together. In any case, we are left with a few interesting glimpses wrapped around excerpts of the diaries Fisher says she kept while shooting “Star Wars” and recently discovered. Even the diary bits are not very revealing, being the moody musings, including poetry, of a young woman on the cusp of 20 years old.
It’s clear from the final two chapters of the book, one of them titled “Leia’s Lap Dance,” that Fisher published this book with making money in mind. Her closing meditation on fame leaves Ford and the affair far behind. However, many “Star Wars” fans will read this book anyway or likely did so the instant it appeared. (Grove Atlantic), by Val McDermid
Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie has always been a workaholic. But now immersion in her work doesn’t just give her life structure, it also has become a kind of comfort that allows her to deal with grief in “Out of Bounds,” Val McDermid’s latest exciting novel about this Scottish police detective.
Pirie, now head of Police Scotland’s small Historic Cases Unit in Edinburgh, tackles a decades-old murder after 17-year-old Ross Garvie goes on a high-speed ride with three of his friends. A horrific crash results in the death of the three drunken teens and leaves Garvie in a coma.
Karen and her partner, Detective Constable Jason Murray, become involved when Garvie’s DNA is shown to be a familial match to that of a Glasgow hairdresser whose rape and murder has gone unsolved for years. But maneuvering the Scottish legal system to track down Garvie’s male relatives is fraught with complications.
Another case also occupies Karen’s time — the alleged suicide of Gabriel Abbott, who lived in Kinross. The Abbott case isn’t Karen’s, but she becomes nearly obsessed with finding out if his death was in any way linked to the death of his mother, who was killed in a plane crash decades earlier.
The caseloads help distract Karen from her grief over the death of Phil Parhatka, a fellow detective who was killed in the line of duty. She loved Phil and longs to discuss every investigation, twist and theory with him. When not at work, she drinks and walks the streets and neighborhoods of Edinburgh at night to ease her insomnia.
Karen is easily the smartest person in the room. She often infuriates her bosses, who grudgingly acknowledge that her insight and intelligence gets the job done.
McDermid balances the intense character studies in “Out of Bounds” with an inside view of the Scottish legal system and again shows
her acuity in producing intelligent thrillers.
Also:
NEW YORK: A former White House aide who is now the chief operating officer of a Brooklyn-based media company is working on an upbeat, but “warts and all” book about her years in the Obama administration.
Twelve, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, told The Associated Press on Monday that Alyssa Mastromonaco had a deal for “Who Thought This Was Good Idea: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House?”
The publisher says the memoir will bring the reader into Obama’s inner circle, offering an “admiring” account of the president, while showing the determination and resilience needed to get the job done.
Mastromonaco, 40, has worked with Obama in a variety jobs, dating to his time as a state senator from Illinois.
She served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations from 2011-2014, and joined Vice Media the following year. Her book is scheduled for March 21. “This is a warts-and-all account of Alyssa’s time at the White House, putting out fires, meeting with world leaders and occasionally winning elections,” according to Twelve’s announcement.
“Less political diatribe than a gossip session with an older sister — if that sibling worked for the leader of the free world — Mastromonaco delves into funny stories that never saw the light of day, including meeting the Queen of England in jeans, tussling with President Karzai’s guards, and having a bad case of IBS while visiting the Holy See at the Vatican.” (AP)