While fame came early on for Lena Dunham with her first independent film TINY FURNITURE (2010) which lead to being noticed. Judd Apatow thought wow, this girl's got talent and entrusted her to draft a TV series to pitch. The pitch's promising premise of a 20 something, present day SEX and the CITY was picked up and made into the HBO hit show GIRLS (2012-2017). Dunham wrote, stared and directed in this series which earned her two Golden Globes and several Emmy nominations. Despite never having watched the show, I was not oblivious to the phenomenon and notoriety it created. I was curious as to the creative ingenuity inherent talent for developing and maintaining this masterful conception. This compelling and often times off-putting bio left me with key takeaways. Firstly, I was disappointed there was little to glean from inventive process. Perhaps Lena was limited in dissecting her innovative mind. Still, writing is definitely her labor of love, her calling, her passion. But she drones on about writing alone in bed. Granted, her ability to imagine and draw out stories is a solitary endeavor. Getting GIRLS up and running was not and the gravitas for susstaining the quality and functioning of the show was not loss on Lena. She grasped the magnitude of people reliant upon her which was anxiety producing. Secondly, she did have a partner and bestie, Jenni Konner; the conduit for keeping the show on track. Konner kept Lena grounded until their relationship fell apart. Lena laments relentlessly on the loss of their friendship. She had Konner agree to therapy to see if they could reignite their chemistry. Thirdly, Lena's shared her lurid sexual encounters with TMI. Perhaps this was on par with GIRLS. Putting it out there was never meant to be filtered but felt of morose. Overall, the major focus of this candid and deftly written bio were the litanies of debilitating, excruciating maladies having to do with her uterus and endometriosis crises. It doesn't seem feasible for Lena to have had time between her hospitalizations and chronic ministrations to accomplish any work. Recuperating and mainly ministered to by her parents, who were preternaturally supportive, their familial bond was stringent. Lena tells her mother her reason for writing FAMESICK. "I want to write this book, I told her. Everything I've been through. How random it was but how all of it needed to happen." Her mom replies, "Oh, Lena, she moaned. It just sounds so sad." Mom knows best. Lena's life felt like an unrelenting state of anxiety, depression and pain. Lena admits the only connection left with Jack, her former long time love, "the biggest thing we now had in common was the shared sense that neither of deserved to be happy." This memoir is an introspection of depression. Fame in all its glory is not Lean's whole story. It's mired in mental health issues and sickness.
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