My Judy Garland Life [Hardcover]

`What a self-deprecating, funny, moving, entertaining read it is, a mad love letter from Susie Boyt to Judy Garland . . . It makes for a new kind of memoir, one that finds a way to insert, philosophically and emotionally, between the plain words "my" and "life", the everyday pathos, bathos and surreality of being alive in the modern, celebrity-glutted, couldn't-care-less Western world . . . Art meets psychoanalysis meets entertainment meets reality in the bravura performance of My Judy Garland Life . . . a poetically infused work in its own right . . . What is extraordinary about it is its incautiousness, its flung-openness, its huge moral heart . . . This book is stark naked. It wears its vulnerability like a birthday suit, and does so for all of us, in a spirit of born celebration . . . This wonderfully clever book gives its whole self, flings its arms out in the rainy street like a wonderful diva. Brava' --Ali Smith, THE TIMES

'The book defies definition . . . it is a bold experiment that sets out to map the boundaries of celebrity obsession, and somewhere along the way discovers what it means to be human . . . beautiful, heart stopping writing'

'You'd need the heart of a tin man not to be moved'

'Part memoir, part biography, part astute cultural analysis and altogether charming, this is a magical look at the roles of hero and hero worshipper'

'Highly original, meditative blend of biography and memoir'

Fascinating and extraordinary, thrilling and poignant, My Judy Garland Life will speak to anyone who has ever nursed an obsession or held a candle to a star. Judy Garland has been an important figure in Susie Boyt's life since she was three years old, comforting, inspiring and at times disturbing her. In this unique book, Boyt travels deep into the underworld of hero worship, reviewing through the prism of Judy our understanding of rescue, consolation, love, grief and fame. What does it mean to adore someone you don't know? What is the proper husbandry of a twenty-first century obsession? Boyt's journey takes in a duetting breakfast with Mickey Rooney, a Munchkin luncheon, tea with the largest collector of Garlandia, an illicit late-night spree at the Minnesota Judy Garland Museum and a breathless, semi-sacred encounter with Miss Liza Minnelli ...

Susie Boyt is the author of four acclaimed novels and writes a weekly column about fashion for the Financial Times. She also works part time as a bereavement counsellor