The Stars in Our Eyes

June 1, 2017
A collection of essays on our culture's fascination with celebrities.Klam (Friendkeeping: A Field Guide to the People You Love, Hate, and Can't Live Without, 2012, etc.) has done her share of celebrity journalism in magazines like Harper's Bazaar and Glamour. In her fifth book, she chronicles her interviews with one-time or sort-of celebrities like Timothy Hutton, whose 15 minutes came when he won an Oscar in 1980 at age 20 for Ordinary People, and Griffin Dunne, who starred in An American Werewolf in London. They come across as perfectly pleasant, polite guys with little apparent interest in the subject of celebrity. The author professes a fascination with celebrities that began when she was a teenager plastering her bedroom walls with pages from Tiger Beat, but by this point, that fascination has clearly faded, and she seems to be proceeding dutifully through all the expected bases. She observes strangers taking selfies outside the restaurant where Seinfeld was filmed, speaks with Quentin Tarantino's publicist, discusses the necessity of plastic surgery for celebrities, frets about the Kardashians and their unearned fame, and interviews former Mets player R.A. Dickey, forgetting to turn on her tape recorder, with a resulting chapter that's more about her than him. The book is padded with dozens of recollections of celebrity sightings by Klam's friends and acquaintances. In the book's most pleasurable moments, the author discusses her Aunt Mattie, an unabashed reality TV show fan who enjoys sitting in her La-Z-Boy with her dog and some licorice and pretzels to watch and muse on the complicated relationships in Love & Hip-Hop: Hollywood. Entertaining but shallow. Klam is perhaps too sensible a writer to care much about the filtered world of celebrities, and her fundamental indifference to the subject, no matter how she struggles to overcome it, makes the book seem less than essential.

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June 1, 2017

What is it that makes celebrities famous--and why are ordinary people so fascinated with them? Author and memoirist Klam (Please Excuse My Daughter) explores these questions in bite-sized chapters covering topics such as child stars, scandals, and the lure and harmful effects of fame, usually in conversation with one or two people ranging from those in the industry (actor Timothy Hutton, agent Adam Schweitzer) to Klam's own Aunt Mattie (a devotee of reality TV). Between chapters are "intermissions" in which people describe their own encounters with celebrities, ranging from amusing, sweet, and sometimes cringingly awkward. While Klam has great verve for her subject, her treatment of its various facets unfortunately tends toward the shallow, and the already thin book is padded out a little too much with digressions on her own particular celebrity connections and interests. VERDICT There's nothing new or particularly insightful here, but Klam's breezy style and the variety of celebrity anecdotes might provide a fun indulgence for those looking for a quick, gossipy read. [See Prepub Alert, 2/6/17.]--Kathleen McCallister, Tulane Univ., New Orleans

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2017
A book about the culture of celebrity obsession might seem a departure for Klam (Love at First Bark, 2011), who's previously written books about dogs and friends and her mother, but she is qualified: she's been star-obsessed for as long as she can remember. Through interviews with entertainment-industry insiderssome of whom are actors she once pined after from her preteen bedroomshe considers child stardom, conflicted feelings about a public figure's work versus his or her personal life, old Hollywood versus new, and the concept of reality stardom (with more than a few digs at the Kardashian empire). Chapters end with testimonies from Klam's friends, many of whom readers will recognize, about their own brushes with celebrity. Writer Lee Woodruff recalling the time she needed Kevin Costner, a complete stranger, to know that she was pregnant, not lazy, is particularly memorable. With insightful research that speaks to Klam's personal interests, and lots of long quotes from Klam's many interviewees, this will find its most enthusiastic readership among lovers of memoir and books about Hollywood.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)