SURVIVOR

by Christina Crawford ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 1988

Now in her late 40s, the author of Mommie Dearest and the amateurish novel Black Widow hits her stride with this strong account of her simultaneous tragedies: the release of the abominable film version of her memoir, and a massive stroke that left her wholly crippled. Crawford calls this her ""long night's journey from anger and chaos to the peace of an inner awakening""--which sounds gongs of cliche in the reader's ear until you find that the chaos Crawford means is complete cerebral breakdown accompanied by fight-sided paralysis: ""I, who had worked so hard for a fancy masters degree in communication, could not speak a full sentence that anyone else in this world was able to understand. I was cocooned in a body that didn't work, with a mind that felt like a pinball machine gone whacko."" Perhaps a fifth of her book, about her hard-earned New Age spiritual philosophy, will strike some as mush-gush. Granted Crawford's experience, the reader might well reel accepting of her ""great joyous connection to life and the process of being alive""--which emerged from her postoperative jump into shamanism, past-life regression, yoga, Tai Chi, noetics, etc., and a life-saving leap into Alcoholic Anonymous. This was a tremendous change of interests after her publishing horror story with Mommie Dearest and Hollywood horror story with Paramount Pictures and Faye Dunaway. Crawford was insistent at the start that Mommie Dearest be presented as a child-abuse tale in the first-person as written; the Hollywood crew, including Dunaway (who didn't believe in Crawford's version of stepmother Joan's cruelty), wanted and made a lurid parody of a Joan Crawford movie. The camp classic that resulted bears none of the author's message. One closes this fine, moving read with great respect for Christina Crawford--and hoping for less point-blank philosophy her next time out.

Pub Date: Oct. 27, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Donald Fine

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION