It's Going To Be A Bumpy Book

Happy birthday, Parker Posey.  Today she hits the big 50 (a tricky birthday for anyone, but especially if you're in show biz).

I've always liked Parker Posey, so I checked out her memoir You're On An Airplane.  It was fine--some decent stories about her life and her films.  I don't have too much to say about it. (Though she spends a lot of time talking about her work on Irrational Man (2015), not one of her better films--I guess it's because she was excited to work with Woody Allen.)

But that framing device.  I assume it was her idea, perhaps done against the advice of her publisher.  The concept, implied by the title, is you're on an airplane and Parker Posey is sitting next to you, making conversation, telling stories.

It's a weird conceit.  For the most part, it doesn't get in the way--she tells her stories as she might have told them in any other memoir.  But it sure doesn't add anything. If anything, it's a distraction. (As are the eccentric illustrations and photographs found amongst the pages).

Her book, her process, I guess.  But even if she feels she's idiosyncratic so needs an idiosyncratic book, just doing it in a straightforward manner--and letting the stories show how different she is--probably would have been better.

And while we're at it, how come memoirs these days so rarely have an index?