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Chanel Bonfire Wendy Lawless

Chanel Bonfire By Wendy Lawless

Chanel Bonfire by Wendy Lawless


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Condition - Very Good
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Summary

A stunning memoir about an actress's unconventional childhood with an alcoholic and suicidal mother and the strength that allowed her to rise above it

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Chanel Bonfire Summary

Chanel Bonfire: A Book Club Recommendation! by Wendy Lawless

By the time Wendy Lawless turned seventeen, she'd known for quite some time that she didn't have a normal mother. But that didn't stop her from wanting one...

Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She had slept with too many men, and some women, and she didn't like dogs or children. Georgann had the ice queen beauty of a Hitchcock heroine and the cold heart to match.

In this evocative, darkly humorous memoir, Wendy deftly charts the highs and lows of growing up with her younger sister in the shadow of an unstable, fabulously neglectful mother. Georgann, a real-life Holly Golightly who constantly reinvents herself as she trades up from trailer-park to penthouse, suffers multiple nervous breakdowns and suicide attempts, while Wendy tries to hide the cracks in their fractured family from the rest of the world.

Chanel Bonfire depicts a childhood blazed through the refined aeries of The Dakota and the swinging townhouses of London, while the girls' beautiful but damned mother desperately searches for glamour and fulfilment. Ultimately, they must choose between living their own lives and being their mother's warden.

Chanel Bonfire Reviews

"Lawless leavens her harrowing story with biting humor and never descends into self-pity--but boy, do we feel for her." -- People
"Frequently entertaining chronicle of a daughter's sad, detached upbringing." -- Kirkus
"[A] darkly comic memoir...[Lawless] chronicles her mother's decline from sparkling femme fatale to desperate drunk in this simultaneously chilling and hilarious tale, whose unmistakable message is that though Lawless has, in some ways, led a privileged life, she never got the one thing she most wanted: her mother's love." -- O Magazine
"[A] quick but powerful read that you can only wish was fiction." -- USA Today
"Lawless's chronicles of life with her charming, wildly unstable mother could be bleak, but the author's wit, resilience, and compassion make her story illuminating and inspiring." -- Reader's Digest
"A searing memoir that reads like a novel, as Lawless's beautiful, unstable mother careens through the swinging sixties and seventies in New York, London, Paris and Morocco, two captive blond daughters in tow, before bottoming out in Boston. What astonishes is the author's ability to tell her often hair-raising story of survival not only with lucidity and fluency but wry humor." -- Anne Korkeakivi, author of An Unexpected Guest
"[A] wrought and engaging memoir." * Publishers Weekly *
"I was blown away by Wendy's ability to tell the story of such an emotional, troubled upbringing with such heart, love, and oftentimes, humor. If she isn't bitter, maybe none of us have the right to be. I found her story riveting." -- Sarah Colonna, New York Times bestselling author of Life as I Blow It
"Mothers, in spite of what we wish desperately to believe, are sometimes very, very bad at taking care of children. Wendy Lawless survived her mother's flagrant horror show to bear witness and record her astonishing childhood. Chanel Bonfire makes an undesirable truth more vivid: some mothers just plain suck." -- Susanna Sonnenberg, New York Times bestselling author of Her Last Death and She Matters
"Chanel Bonfire is both terribly funny and terribly tragic, often at the same time. With remarkable clarity, wit, and grace, Wendy Lawless recounts a childhood defined by her wildly unstable mother, a woman who can morph from Grace Kelly to Joan Crawford in the blink of an eye. I laughed a lot, teared up once or twice, and called my mom to say `I love you' once I finished."
-- Cristina Alger, bestselling author of The Darlings
"What a heart-breaking memoir. I will never look at a blue nightgown the same way again!"
-- Tim Gunn, New York Times bestselling author of Gunn's Golden Rules and Tim Gunn's Fashion Bible
"This miracle of a memoir is completely free from self-pity, and it's surprisingly suspenseful." -- BookPage
"Without too much self-pity, and with a good dash of humor, Lawless recounts a childhood spent on the move." -- Bust
"Chanel Bonfire is provocative and affecting, sometimes humorous, and filled with sadness and loneliness. Wendy tells her story in a stunning, straightforward manner that is very moving." -- All Books Considered
"Lawless, a Broadway actress and essayist, keepsher prose straight forward, letting the story shine in this shockinglyentertaining memoir." -- Aritzia.com

About Wendy Lawless

Wendy Lawless is an actress who has appeared on television, in regional theatre, Off-Broadway in David Ives's Obie-winning play All in the Timing and on Broadway in The Heidi Chronicles.

Additional information

CIN1451675364VG
9781451675368
1451675364
Chanel Bonfire: A Book Club Recommendation! by Wendy Lawless
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Simon & Schuster
2013-01-31
304
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Chanel Bonfire