On the Popularity of Celebrity Memoirs

I have previously remarked the prominence of celebrity "memoirs" ghostwritten on behalf of illiterates which say absolutely nothing, and the eagerness with which the public seems to eat them up, rewarding the Dauriats of Park Avenue for their so crassly selling the "distinguished" names on the covers of books rather than the stuff between the covers so that the already rich and famous get richer and more famous while they tell real writers who may actually have something to say to (to put it relatively politely) go to hell.

Where the memoirs of celebrities from the world of politics--"Showbusiness for ugly people"--are concerned, those who find this reality distasteful and depressing at least can take comfort in the thought that their sales figures substantially represent purchases by backers looking to subsidize and promote their bought politicians, and reward them for services rendered, directly and by helping the books be bestsellers by making them bestsellers. (Eddie Murphy's 1992 satire The Distinguished Gentleman may not have been particularly well-received by the critics, but it did have its moments--not least Joe Don Baker's Olaf Andersen thundering at Lane Smith's Dick Dodge that among much else he had done for him he bought ten thousand copies of his "boring, dull-ass autobiography!")

Alas, in contrast with the faked show of interest in the self-serving garbage that the memoir of a career politician looking to get further up the greasy pole must necessarily be, a great portion of the public's apparent enthusiasm for the supposed "Big Thinks" of people from just plain "Showbusiness" seems to me to be genuine--such that while costly publicity efforts doubtless played their part in making their books bestsellers (and indeed, any bestselling book is probably open to the charge that it is a bestseller because its backers bought their way onto the bestseller lists these days), these publishing blockbusters cannot be wholly dismissed on those grounds, however much many of us would like to think so.