THE GREAT PEACE: A MEMOIR
BOOK MENA SUVARI | HACHETTE
For someone best known for playing the popular highschool girl on screen, actress Mena Suvari was called countless insulting names by schoolmates, bullies and lovers according to this explosive memoire, an unflinching record of the years of serious emotional, sexual and drug abuse she suffered even as she became Hollywood’s next big thing.
American Pie, American Beauty and other movies are dutifully ticked off, as are more recent projects like American Horror Story. Yet Suvari’s acting credits largely remain in the background of a book that from the very beginning – a startling account of her chancing upon an old suicide note – feels like a harrowing, therapeutic confessional.
It’s fair to say her partners come poorly out of this. Indeed, from the high-schooler who took her virginity at the age of 12 to the controlling DJ who gave her herpes when not demeaning her with unwelcome sex acts, she has an unfortunate knack for finding rotten apples. Two short-lived marriages are testament to a life in which stability – until recently at least – has been a fanciful pipe dream. Two separate riding accidents in Guatemala and Costa Rica, meanwhile, are just two examples of the many other mishaps fate has thrown in her direction.
Some slightly indulgent, self-penned poetry apart, this is a powerful read that – much like Sharon Stone’s The Beauty Of Living Twice – will make you see its author in a different, perhaps more forgiving light.