Planet Barbra
Like many other homosexuals of a certain age, I was overjoyed when I learned that legendary superstar, gay icon, and notoriously private Barbra Streisand would be publishing her memoir last year. I was thrilled to discover that there would be an audiobook version read by La Streisand herself. Believing that there would be no better way to immerse myself in her world, I quickly pre-ordered a copy. I had mixed feelings (namely elation, admiration, and dread, in that order) when the book appeared on my phone and I learned that it was 48 hours long.
Hopefully, that explains why I’m only now writing about the experience, a full four months after I began listening. You see, listening to an audiobook is something I usually do only in the car, and as I didn’t have any road trips to Alaska scheduled over the holidays, I typically listened for a half-hour at a time, in fits and starts. Thankfully, I discovered that Barbra narrates rather slowly, and found that I could adjust the reading speed to about 1.3x, which still sounded like a normal rate of speech but cut the time down to a mere 37 hours.
But, when not in my car, I couldn’t help but give a rewatch to Funny Girl, Hello, Dolly!, The Way We Were, What’s Up, Doc?, Yentl, and The Prince of Tides while reading. And sometimes while working, I might have instructed Alexa to play The Broadway Album, the Guilty album, and the newly released Barbra Streisand Live at the Bon Soir many, many (many) times. So, I’m pretty sure I made up for those 11 saved hours, and then some.
And in the final analysis, do I recommend it? I mean…sure, I guess. But I know full well that there are many people in my life for whom a celebrity memoir that could play without stopping for two solid days is simply a non-starter, and a few others who will read the book (and have probably already done so) no matter what anyone says. And everyone has probably made the right decision for themselves. But if you’re in the former camp and will likely never read My Name is Barbra but you’re curious enough to spend approximately four minutes with me, read on.
What I principally loved about the book is that it’s mostly about her work. There’s very little kissing and telling. Sure, she goes into some details about her well-known relationships with Elliott Gould and Jon Peters, James Brolin, and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, which I had somehow missed.
But those get fleeting mentions when compared with the meticulous detail with which she describes her most famous performances, and especially the films she directed. The men in her life that got my attention were Sydney Chaplin (trash), William Wyler (brilliant, kind), Walter Matthau (also trash), Sydney Pollack (great but ultimately disappointing), and Mandy Patinkin (yet again, more trash), because these were working relationships and if there’s one thing Barbra likes to talk about, it’s the work.
If you admire Barbra as an artist already, your esteem could only grow after reading about nearly every creative choice she ever made. I knew she was a brilliant singer, but I learned that she considers herself an actress who can also sing (and has also recorded 36 studio albums, but okay). I knew she never went back to Broadway after Funny Girl, and had an inkling that it had something to do with stage fright (which is true), but learned that it’s also because she finds theatre interminably boring, doing the same show with the same blocking, night after night.
The book falters somewhat when she wants to convince the reader that she’s still a skinny kid from Brooklyn as opposed to the diva she has undoubtedly become. At one point, she told a succession of stories about people who had an idea but immediately capitulated when she had another idea, and how refreshing it was to work with people who didn’t have egos. Ah, the irony.
And yes, I could absolutely relate to the heartbreak she felt when her beloved dog died. That’s a pain that I and many others have faced. But no, there’s simply no way to write about getting your dearly departed dog cloned while making it sound like a reasonable, rational choice that any one of us might make on planet Earth. That’s something that you do when you live on Planet Barbra.
But I didn’t sign up for a book written by someone I felt I knew, but someone I had always admired, from a very long distance. And in the final analysis, she’s a star, which is even better than a planet, because stars make their own light. Viva la diva. ▼
Eric Peterson is Interim Managing Editor of Amble Press, a novelist (Loyalty, Love & Vermouth), and a diversity, equity, and inclusion practitioner. In his spare time, he hosts a podcast, The Rewind Project.