LENA DUNHAM
In this rowdy, frank reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and the bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain.
For the last decade, as shes spent countless hours in doctors waiting rooms searching for diagnoses, treatments, and relief, being the owner and operator of Lena Dunhams body has felt, as she puts it, like towing a wrecked car across town at midnight. Its not easy dragging a wrecked car anywhere, much less to the Met Gala while sewn into a gold lamé corset. Or to the set of the hit show that youas a twenty-five-year-oldare writing, directing, producing, and starring in. Or to the White House, the Golden Globes, or your publicists office to discuss the latest internet disaster. But Dunham does iteven if it means interminable hospital stays, vomiting in the bathroom when shes meant to be meeting Oprah, or terrifying those closest to herbecause she can no longer tell the difference between fighting to do what she loves and being a servant to her own ambition. All the while, she is holding out for a love that can withstand her personal and public challenges and, more than anything, yearning to feel like herself againif only she could remember who that self was.
As Dunham takes us through her journey, tracking her rise to famefrom selling the pilot of Girls to the presentin three acts, it becomes clear that the spotlight casts long shadows, distorting the relationships she once held dear and isolating everyone in its glare. When an endless supply of drugs cant protect you from painand begins to control your every movebeing famous doesnt stand a chance against the darker corners of the human experience.
In Famesick, Dunham asks herself what the cost of fulfilling her dreams has really been, and whether it was worth it. What she finds is deeper than physical relief, and more lasting, as she learns to live with what she cant change and turn her regrets into wisdom that can carry her forward, as she reconnects to what, and who, she loves.
