Hillary Frey

MADNESS: A BIPOLAR LIFE
By Marya Hornbacher
Houghton Mifflin, 299 pages, $25

Ten years ago, Marya Hornbacher published Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia. From the cover of the paperback edition, available in the “Recovery” section of your local Barnes & Noble, a 23-year-old Ms. Hornbacher stares out at you, challenging you to reconcile this fairly regular-looking young woman with the subject matter of her book. (But she doesn’t look sick!) And now, on the cover of her new book, Madness: A Bipolar Life, here she is again: older, more grown up, less defiant. She’s recovered—sort of. This time we’re meant to understand that a nice-looking person like Ms. Hornbacher can have bipolar disorder. (But she’s so … normal!)  read more »

Until last Thursday, when a nude photograph of Carla Bruni, the 40-year-old model-turned-pop-star-turned-first lady of France, sold at Christie’s for $91,000, more than 20 times its expected price, Ms. Bruni hadn’t been the subject of much conversation among New Yorkers. But over the last week, her name popped out of pursed lips at cocktail lounges and long lunches across the city, as men and women started to catch on that a new icon of fashion, sex and sensibility—a 21st-century amalgam of Jackie O, Lady Di and J-Lo—was emerging across the Atlantic.  read more »

THE STORY OF FORGETTING
By Stefan Merrill Block
Random House, 313 pages, $25

Stefan Merrill Block’s debut novel, The Story of Forgetting, takes place during the course of one summer in Texas in the late 1990’s, but it also manages to cover decades, looking far back into one family’s history, tracing the Alzheimer’s gene that passed from parent to offspring in a pattern nearly as regular as houndstooth check. It deals with scientific inquiry, putting one humble family under the microscope, but The Story of Forgetting manages to feel big and small in perfect proportion, at once intimate and universal. Mr. Block has made something very beautiful out of something very ugly: a disease that steals people’s lives from them.  read more »

All kinds of people are watching HBO’s seven-part miniseries John Adams, which airs its fifth installment, "Unite or Die," on Sunday night at 9 p.m. Some are HBO loyalists, who will try anything the network puts on the table at least once (even John From Cincinnati, the network’s most glorious failure). Others are people like my parents, who prefer the BBC and PBS and (at least in my dad’s case) war documentaries over edgier network fare. And still others are people more like myself: avid fans of the television, in general, who are bored out of their skulls wandering the post-writers'-strike wasteland of nighttime programming. Is everything on hiatus? Brothers and Sisters, we await your return!

Still, though many young people confess that they are watching the show, nobody seems to talk about it the way they talked about The Sopranos.  read more »

On Sunday, March 30, in the shoe department on the fifth floor of Bergdorf Goodman, ladies of varying age were sitting with box after box piled before them and male shopping companions collapsed at their sides, wearing the typical lobotomized expressions of men forced to undertake a woman’s expedition. A small crowd had gathered near a display of Christian Louboutin pumps made of cork, while others longingly pawed at the mass of Manolo Blahniks. But at the other end of the floor, another shoe stood tall and alone, crying out for the attention it would be denied by most, if not all, shoppers: a Marni wedge with a five-inch black platform and thick straps of brown and chartreuse patent calf leather, a cabbage in a rose bed, one ugly heel.  read more »

For roughly the past 10 years, I’ve avoided the Gap. I don’t like khaki, the color or the word. Nor do I care for the classic young America look (pressed white shirts, slim jeans) the store seems to trot out each year as if it’s new.

This wasn’t always the case. At different crucial moments in my life, the Gap has been there for me. In 1989, I got a pair of black pedal pushers there (off the sale rack, for about $9), which I wore folded and rolled up above my knee, like pantaloons. Even better, I wore them over turquoise footless tights and then, on top, threw on an enormous hot pink T-shirt. This was my ninth-grade uniform. And yes, I loved the 80’s.  read more »

Last Thursday, I sent an e-mail to my husband, informing him I was on my way home to watch a couple of episodes of Snapped, the show on the Oxygen channel about women who kill their husbands.

He shot back: “So by the time I get home, you’ll have the knife sharpened and the big plastic bag all ready to dump my body into?”

Ha. Thanks to Snapped, I’d never be dumb enough to use garbage bags!  read more »

As news broke yesterday of Eliot Spitzer’s repeat visits to high-end prostitutes in the employ of the Emperor’s Club, offices across the city were buzzing with speculation about what “unsafe” sexual favors the Governor might have requested.

Although Governor Spitzer reportedly paid about $3,000 for his Feb. 13th date, the most expensive Emperor’s Club ladies are paid $5,500, according to the New York Times. I wondered: what would New York women do in a boudoir with Eliot Spitzer for $5,500? Answer: a lot!  read more »

The writers’ strike might be over, but we can still feel the afttershocks—just look at what’s gonna be on the tube this spring (i.e., not much). Sure, Lost (ABC, Thursday, 9 p.m.) returned a few weeks back, but it’s still a truncated season (13 episodes instead of 16, boo!). And How I Met Your Mother, the best underwatched sitcom on television (don’t you need more Neil Patrick Harris in your life?), returns on Monday, March 17 (CBS, 8:30). But as for new offerings. Well … you decide.  read more »

MY LIAR
By Rachel Cline
Random House, 252 pages, $23

In my experience, New Yorkers tend to be bipolar when it comes to Los Angeles: Either they love it—love it!—after visiting once or twice, and quietly nurse dreams of living there at some point, or they hate it—really hate it—and look with disdain on their neighbors who secretly lust for West Coast weather and perma-tans. Often, those with hate in their bellies have actually spent time in L.A., and will warn the others: Trust me, if you lived there, if you knew what I knew, you’d hate it, too. It’s all plastic. No way, say the dreamers. How could you hate a place with so much sun, so many movies and so much good Mexican?

Until I read Rachel Cline’s My Liar, I counted myself among those with California dreams. On my few trips to L.A., I even loved the driving! But if the characters in Ms. Cline’s book are at all typical of Angelenos—and I think they’re meant to be—then, no thanks! It’s just like I’ve been warned: full of narcissists, creeps and insecure idiots.  read more »

Ladies, if you thought you could have it all, you can’t. You can come close—you can have an attractive partner, cute kids, cool job, decent apartment—but it’s not going to be everything put together like you thought. You’ll do the best you can at all these things, but in everyone else’s eyes, it will never be enough. Yes, it’s rough out there.

But…  read more »

I saw the dress first in a magazine advertisement, on a model named Sasha Pivovarova, who was seated with three other pale young women. The clothes they were wearing, I would come to learn, came from the Prada Resort collection for spring-summer 2008.

Even though the way Ms. Pivovarova was sitting, slightly slouched in a way that obscured some of the dress’s finer details, I could tell that it would look great on me. It was strapless (good if one is busty), with a corseted bodice and billows and billows of skirt that give the hipless hips and the already-hipped (ahem) some cover. Black, with pink and white leaves all over. I looked at the picture and pictured myself in the dress on a ship, wind in my face, even though the only time I’ve ever been sailing I was acting as a deckhand, polishing brass fixtures.  read more »

Let it snow! For the next few days, Observer snow bunnies Spencer Morgan and Sara Vilkomerson will be reporting from Sundance—and sending pictures! Look for the coded message in the picture below ...

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We once had the pleasure of meeting Ian McEwan, the ever-more popular author of Atonement. (For the record, he Culture Czar will always favor his creepy classic, Enduring Love. A hot air balloon was never so memorable!) Mr. McEwan struck us as outrageously smart and outspoken (he’s been a staunch critic of the war on terror); he also had that impeccable grace the English seem to come by so easily. So perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that Mr. McEwan hates what you’re reading right now: blogs.  read more »

The National Book Critics Circle announced their nominees for end of the year awards on Saturday, and tonight you can celebrate!  read more »

On Sunday night, Jan. 6, HBO will broadcast the first episode of the fifth, and last, season of The Wire. To assure fans: The show continues to offer perhaps the most loving and damning portrait of Baltimore ever put to film, from the cops to the teachers to the drug dealers to the politicians who make that city the charming disaster that it is. And as a bonus, a parade of favorites from past seasons (hey, was that Nicky Sobotka?) will be trotted past, like perps on a walk, before the final goodbye.  read more »

When Adrienne Shelly’s film Waitress opened last spring, it was bittersweet, to say the least. Just months before the film’s release, Ms. Shelly was killed at her office in Tribeca by a workman with whom she’d had a disagreement. It was a senseless and random death for anyone to suffer, but Ms. Shelley’s murder seemed even more ridiculous in light of the unapologetic opitimism of her last movie, which comes out on DVD this week. Waitress, which Ms. Shelly wrote, directed and co-starred in, just might be the most hopeful indie movie ever. And when we say hopeful, we mean it in a sincere and positive way. Isn’t everyone entitled to have their heart warmed now and again and not feel like a chump?  read more »

We haven’t even peeked Paul Thomas Anderson’s much anticipated There Will Be Blood (in theaters December 26) or Mike Nichols’s star-studded Charlie Wilson’s War (December 25), but Oscar speculating has already begun. To give you a leg up in your Oscar pool, Entertainment Weekly has a “handicapping tip sheet” to make your guesses as educated as possible. For pros, some of their advice will seem pretty obvious. For instance, that the arty movies you wish would be nominated for Best Picture (ie, Into the Wild, Rescue Dawn) could well show up in the screenwriting category, since screenwriters have more “adventuresome spirits” than the Academy folks doing the big category judging. Or that there’s a schmaltz factor in choosing the Best Actor and Actress. However, EW’s background on who does what voting is insightful and smart, and their trust no-one—especially bloggers—attitude is, well, refreshing. “Some of those [movie] bloggers tend to get chest-thumpy about a certain type of (usually male, usually violent) film: This year, a lot of bluster is already massing around No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. They're contenders, but rhetoric doesn't equal votes.” True that—but we’re still betting Mr. Anderson and his star, Daniel-Day Lewis, will come out somewhere near the top.

In a weird way, it’s fitting that the Gilmore Girls: The Complete Series Collection would arrive this week, just after Norman Mailer’s passing. It was not his last television appearance before his death, but it was close to it. And it might have been one of his most surprising—at least to the men who revered his work. (If they ever saw the show, they wouldn’t dare admit it.)

Earlier this year, I attended a luncheon in honor of Norman Mailer, on the occasion of his latest book. There were men, everywhere, waiting to ask him: did he believe in God? Why did he write about Hitler? What did he eat for breakfast? I had something else on my mind. When he came to my table, I hollered across it: “Mr. Mailer, why were you on Gilmore Girls?”

Mr. Mailer didn’t flinch. “I did it for my son,” he said, and went on to explain that his son Stephen was a struggling actor, and Norman had agreed to do a scene with him (he played himself, his son played a journalist interviewing him) to get him on the show. He also rhapsodized about Suki, a character played by Melissa McCarthy, who ran the inn where Mr. Mailer’s interview was going on. He thought she was hilarious.  read more »

Bad news came today: Christmas is cancelled.

The last screenings for the much-anticipated (by us anyway) Christmas in Wonderland were scrapped at the last minute today, leaving us to wonder what we could possibly eat for lunch that would fill up the empty hole in our hearts that Patrick Swayze and Carmen Electra were going to fill.

“Two kids, a mall, a million in cash… what could go wrong?” asks the tagline.  read more »

If you've never caught Terrence Malick's 1978 film Days of Heaven in one of its many revivals at Film Forum, today is your lucky day. The Criterion Collection—that arbiter of taste, that curator of all that's good in film (well, not all...they haven't done Old School yet)—has just released a new, re-mastered DVD edition of Mr. Malick's second film.  read more »

Chris Eigeman, Whit Stillman’s and Noah Baumbach’s proxy, hits adulthood.  read more »

Bad news for folks desperately awaiting the arrival of The Return of Jezebel James, the midseason Fox comedy from Gilmore Girls creator (and genius) Amy Sherman-Palladino starring Wuz Girl Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose. Late last week, the network reduced the order from 13 episodes to just 7, according to Variety.

Fox claims an overstuffed midseason lineup, with 24 and American Idol returning. But it’s hard not to suspect the show might be on the rocks. No one loved the Gilmore Girls more than us, but clips we saw of the pilot during the spring Up Fronts was only so-so funny.

Still, we’re crossing our fingers that this dream team will get it together for a full season pickup next year.

The Center Cannot Hold is not a literary work. But it’s a brave book that demystifies a very confusing and bizarre illness.  read more »

From green trees to green screen, Emile Hirsch stars in Into the Wild and next year’s quasi-cartoon Speed Racer.  read more »

When Justin brings sexy back to HBO, viewers will see his moves, but what they won't see is the lust, which seemed to permeate the very air inside MSG.  read more »

A scandalous life coupled with provocative work always stirs up curiosity, and so Oscar Feldman, five years after his death, in 2001, is being examined by not one, but two biographers.  read more »

Each year when the Emmys are announced, I’m surprised by how little conversation they inspire. No Emmy pools; no heated dinner-party debates over best actor in a drama; no party plans made for the night of the broadcast. Almost everyone watches television, and everyone—even the luddites among us—has strong feelings about it. So why don’t we care very much about the single night of the year that television is honored?

Maybe it’s as simple as this: the Emmys are dumb. Look at the nominees this year. There are some justified honors—Justin Timberlake and “Dick in a Box” for ‘Oustanding Original Music and Lyrics,” Ricky Gervais for his work as a writer and actor on, and director of, Extras. But there’s also so much that seems so, so wrong. Not just in terms of undeserved accolades, but in the very categories. How can a show like House—an excellent, addictive if totally formulaic show (misdiagnose, misdiagnose, almost kill patient and wham! Patient cured!) even be compared to that epic favorite, The Sopranos? And then to put them both up against Grey’s Anatomy, which is sort of like a nighttime soap opera...? I don’t know. (Sorry Grey’s fans: I hate E.R. even more.) With all the great, weird, risky stuff on the cable networks (please, watch John from Cincinnati) these contests just aren’t making that much sense anymore.

But nothing’s changing anytime soon. So, about this year’s awards…. Not too many surprises. (You can see the full list here.) I applauded (literally) the nominations of both Michael Emerson and Terry O’Quinn for their creepy characters on the (yet again!) snubbed Lost. (I know we fans are cultish, but seriously—the last season finale was the best season wrap for any show ever.) And also, huzzah for the nod to Neil Patrick Harris for his womanizing Barney Stinson on the better-than-Friends comic masterpiece How I Met Your Mother. It’s also great that Entourage picked up a few noms—for Jeremy Piven, Kevin Dillon (both supporting actors in a comedy) as well as for best comedy series. But I hope the praise won’t go to anyone’s head. The show is sliding in its third season, and the hilarious character Mr. Dillon has made so popular is beginning to morph into a caricature. And also, Adrian Grenier not earning a nom? That's okay. He's pretty, but he can’t really act (ergo, neither can Vinnie Chase). Sorry.

Last thing. With the end of the Gilmore Girls last spring came the final chance for the brilliant, gorgeous, best woman role model in the world Lauren Graham (and yes, I mean Lauren Graham is a great role model, just like her character Lorelai Gilmore) to get an Emmy nod for her work on a show that managed to be loved by the family values folk as well as indie rockers everywhere. And what about Kelly Bishop (perhaps best remembered as Jennifer Grey’s mom in Dirty Dancing) who played Lorelai’s uber-WASP mother, Emily? If only there were an Emmy write-in campaign, I’d launch it now. TV is a little less smart without these two whip-smart women. They were robbed, and so were we.

Superstar chef Gordon Ramsay is about to add another Fox reality show to his growing media girth. Is it too late for him to get back in the kitchen?  read more »

Meet the man who made Angelina Jolie disappear and Mariane Pearl emerge.  read more »

Charlie Murphy had a great mentor in Dave Chappelle. The other was his little brother, Eddie.  read more »

A young person who’s just moved to New York can hardly ignore the name Astor. It spans only one block, but Astor Place is frequently invoked by 23-year-olds, as it connects Broadway to St. Marks Place, the enduringly hip East Village destination.  read more »

Pig out at Brooklyn’s annual pork party.  read more »

After seven seasons, the beloved mother/daughter beyond-bonding dramedy will be going off the air in just two short weeks. Even those of us who anticipated the show's demise were shocked – two weeks?–and saddened. But the sorrow only runs so deep.  read more »

“I was 25 when I moved here,” said Shaun Cottle, a.k.a. Shaun Surething, the co-owner and principal stylist of Seagull Haircutters in the West Village.  read more »

The IMDB gossip page, which usually tells us things we already know, carries a novel piece of information this morning.

James Franco, the James Dean lookalike best known to the public as Peter Parker-friend-turned-foe Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man franchise (but most beloved to us for his turn as Daniel Desario in Freaks and Geeks, of course) is back in college working on his honors thesis in creative writing!

"Part of [the novel's plot] is based on a person I knew when I was younger who got in a lot of trouble and a lot of fights and was arrested a lot and was considered a troubled kid and kicked out of high school," he said. "Then, later, when I graduated high school he was diagnosed as a schizophrenic so I see his behavior as pre-symptoms to getting the help that he needed."

Most of the book industry wants a hotel room and room service paid for by the boss.  read more »

The National Book Critics Circle has begun a petition to reinstate Teresa Weaver as Book Review editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

After the paper folded its book review entirely, the Circle formed around her when she had to leave the paper.

It's pretty grim stuff, what with the recent cutting back in space at the L.A. Times Book Review (once a stand-alone section, now it has to share space with Opinion), but there's something of a bright side as well.
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Claire Danes, Chloë Sevigny, Parker Posey—They Were ‘It,’ But Congratulate Them! They’ve Had It With Clubs ’n’ Columns. Once-Flickering Starlets Aren’t Has-Beens—They’re Grown-Ups!  read more »

Jon Bon Jovi may no longer be headlining, but the organizers of this summer’s Book Expo 2007 don’t feel any less young and hip for that.

Just look at the Web site! In its press area, there’s a special corner for bloggers (BookExpo America Loves Bloggers!).

Elsewhere, there’s a place to load in personal essays inspired by the event! (“Did you meet your wife? Lose your mind? Get stranded at the airport and end up talking with Gore Vidal? Tell us.” Umm, we’ll be tracking these closely.)  read more »

Three years ago, A.M.  read more »

Showtime’s Sapphic shag-fest The L Word will air its season finale Sunday night, capping off,  read more »

What does your analyst think of you?  read more »

Since my rocker boyfriend unceremoniously dumped me last summer, I've been totally obsessed with my  read more »

"Who are these people?" asks Michael Klausman, 29, a manager and buyer at Other Music, the tiny East  read more »