Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 20 November 2008.
A book about celebrity obsession but also about human nature. Susie Boyt has loved Judy Garland from a young age and in this book comes across others who have hero worshipped and still do that iconic figure along with what these obsessions say about human nature and needs. Totally unique, totally fascinating, immerse yourself in a Judy Garland world.
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 . . .
'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
You'd need the heart of a tin man not to be moved' Paul Burston, INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
Author
About Susie Boyt
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.
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