Shockaholic

"Fisher is a girl who knows how to tell a story…she can make us laugh, she can make us cringe, but she can also teach us a great deal about the power of forgiveness" ( People, 4 stars). It was a roller coaster of a few years for Carrie since her Tony Award- and Emmy Award-nominated, one-woman Broadway show and New York Timesbestselling book Wishful Drinking. She not only lost her beloved father, but also her once-upon-a-very-brief-time stepmother, Elizabeth Taylor. And as if that weren't enough, she managed to lose over forty pounds of unwanted fleshnot by sawing off a leg (though that did cross her electrifying mind) but by doing what might be termed "wishful shrinking," while staying sober and sane-ish. Why? Because she wants you to be able to remind her about how Elizabeth Taylor settles a score and the scatological wonders of shoe tycoons. She doesn't want to forget about how she and Michael Jackson became friends or how she ended up squaring off with not just a senator, but theSenator Ted Kennedy on a date. And she especially wants to preserve her memories of her dad Eddie Fisherwhat their relationship was really like andfor all its apparently unconventional aspectshow they were just another father and daughter (her father acting as her daughter and Carrie acting as her beloved father's dad). In the end, family is family, blood is thicker than the strippers she sent him, and what she'll never forget is the tender affection she felt for her father who she wholeheartedly forgave and loved.

Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) became a cultural icon as Princess Leia in the first Star Wars trilogy. She starred in countless films, including Shampoo and When Harry Met Sally. She is the author of Shockaholic; Wishful Drinking (which became a hit Broadway production); and four bestselling novels, Surrender the Pink, Delusions of Grandma, The Best Awful, and Postcards from the Edge.