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use and her attempts to get sober; her
marriage to singer Paul Simon; her code-
pendent bond with her mother; and her
creative process (“all of her books would
be written by her sketching the words on
a notepad while flopped on her bed, with
editors often on the premises”). Along
the way, Weller shares snippets of her
interviews with Fisher’s friends, including
Richard Dreyfuss and Salman Rushdie,
who lament Fisher’s passing, and praises
Fisher for her bold tongue, adding: “She
died just before her brand of raunchily
self-styled feminism, a candor she possessed
all her life, swept over her town, her
industry, America.” Weller insightfully
illuminates the life of a powerful performer
and wordsmith who was unafraid to share
her struggles with the world. (Nov.)
In the Shadow of the Bridge:
A Memoir
Joseph Caldwell. Delphinium, $24 (200p)
ISBN 978-1-883285-83-8
This tender memoir by playwright and
novelist Caldwell (The Pig Trilogy) opens
with a sexually charged meeting on the
Brooklyn Bridge in 1959 between
Caldwell and photographer Gale Gedney.
After they had a brief relationship,
Gedney became Caldwell’s quiet obses-
sion for three decades, during which he
maintains “an exile’s yearning for a return
that would never be allowed.” Caldwell
recounts an austere Milwaukee childhood,
moving to New York, and reconciling his
homosexuality with his Catholicism. (“I
could not not be a Catholic anymore than
I could not be of Irish ancestry, or than I
could not be a male of the human species.”)
Caldwell fondly shares his successes,
such as winning the Rome Prize for liter-
ature in 1978 and his residencies at the
MacDowell and Yaddo writers’ colonies.
During the AIDS crisis in the early
1980s, Caldwell became a volunteer at
St. Vincent’s Hospital, working as a one-
on-one caregiver. But even this experience
couldn’t prepare him for rekindling his
friendship with Gedney, who had AIDS.
For the next few months, Caldwell
became Gedney’s live-in caretaker, while
managing his ongoing affection for his
dying friend. “What I had probably half
hoped for was some degree of renewal of
our emotional intimacy,” Caldwell
writes. His story of love and loss is told
What drew you to Carrie Fisher?
There is almost nobody more complex
than Carrie Fisher, somebody who
could be so tough and sardonic and
unsentimental, then really break down
in tears, really need and want company.
It’s hard to find someone who had so
many juxtapositions, and a lot of that
came from pain. The bipolarity was
always with her, the inherited drug
addiction was always with her, whether
she acted on it or not. That was a double
whammy, and yet she was incredibly
productive. She never stopped working.Are there similarities
between Fisher and the
women you profiled in
Girls Like Us, your 2008
biography of Carole King,
Joni Mitchell, and Carly
Simon?
They were all iconic. They
had fascinating lives, they
had fascinating people in
their lives, and they were
constantly productive. And nothing
kept them down. Whether it was bad
romances or personal tragedies, they
made material out of it.Fisher had major substance abuse
issues. What challenges come with
writing about someone with such a
complicated past?
The challenge is to remain sympathetic
and empathetic. I wanted to show her
in all her forms. The challenge is being
honest and not sugarcoating it, to have
the reader be there with the person,
feeling what they’re going through.You write that Fisher became a rolemodel for young women at the end of
her life. Why do you think that was?
Because she was so honest. She died at
a time when we had just elected a
president, Donald Trump, who made
a virtue out of dishonesty and has
made an absolute success of dishonesty
and people loving him because he’s
dishonest. So her honesty, which was
fierce, which was a 10 on scale of one
to 10, was something that I think
lived with us a little bit unconsciously
as the Trump presidency moved on.Fisher was known for her
legendary parties. What
made her a people
magnet?
She said it herself, I want
to have a personality big
enough to explode in the
sky on New Year’s Eve
over Hong Kong. That
was something she wanted
as a child. And she
achieved it. There are
people who are naturally charismatic.
Some people just have it. She had a
personality, a sense of wit, and she
truly cared about other people.How should Fisher be remembered?
Carrie had bipolar disorder and I think
one of the most significant legacies of
her life was destigmatizing that in a
very strong way. She let you know that
mental illness is chronic, and even if
she feels better and looks totally great
for a period of months or years, it is a
chronic disease. We need empathy for
it and laughter. That was one of the
hidden lessons she gave.
—Elaine Szewczyk[Q&A]
PW Talks with Sheila Weller
Edgy Woman
In Carrie Fisher: Life on the Edge (FSG/Crichton, Nov.; reviewed on p. 68),
Weller explores the life and career of the “badass” writer and actress,
who died in 2016.©^ lau
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