The Queen of Celeb Memoirs Is…

I’m a huge fan of audiobooks, especially when they have a great narrator, and I can’t imagine a more perfect pairing of book and reader than Meryl Streep performing the late, great Nora Ephron’s Heartburn. Movie buffs are no doubt nodding in recognition, recalling that Streep is, in fact, so right for the role that she played the female lead in Mike Nichols’ 1986 film adaptation. The fact that Heartburn is based on Ephron’s real-life divorce from journalist Carl Bernstein makes it just one entry in the celebrity Roman à clef genre, featuring thinly veiled versions of famous people, with new names and slightly fudged facts. After listening to Heartburn, I realized something: Meryl Streep is the queen of the celebrity tell-all novel, appearing as one famous person (or famous person’s avatar) after another.  Here’s some additional evidence:
Postcards from the Edge, by Carrie Fisher. Fisher was a Hollywood enfant terrible in her day, and her 1987 novel doesn’t go to great lengths to disguise the fact that it’s all about her own struggles with addiction and, moreover, her relationship with her famous mum, Debbie Reynolds. Where does Streep fit in? Once again, Mike Nichols directed her as the lead in the film adaptation, with Shirley MacLaine stepping into the role of her mother.
The Devil Wears Prada, by Lauren Weisberger. Weisberger’s focus is on another kind of equally infamous celebrity. Her fictional fashion tyrant, Miranda Priestley, was clearly heavily influenced by her former boss Anna Wintour, the notoriously icy editor of Vogue, though Weisberger wisely remains vague on the subject. Streep picked up an Oscar playing Priestly opposite Anne Hathaway in the 2006 movie—can an adaptation of recent sequel Revenge Wears Prada be far behind?
My Life in France, by Julia Child. This one sneaks in on a technicality. The “Julia” half of 2009’s blog-to-book-to-movie Julie & Julia is based on Julia Child’s memoir about her years spent living in Paris in the 1950s, learning French cooking (unfortunately leaving out all the stuff about how she worked for the OSS during World War II!). Streep received her one-millionth Oscar nomination for playing the title role in the film, directed by…Nora Ephron. (Mind. Blown.)
Honorable mentions:
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. Yes, Streep starred as the journalist in the movie version of Orlean’s book, but Adaptation, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze, is less an adaptation of the book and more a meditation on the process. Also Streep/Orlean is the only quasi-famous person in the book, but the movie sure does pile on the fictional elements, including a weird stream of celebrity cameos and the invention of Orlean’s addiction to snorting orchid pollen.
What celebrity tell-all novel should Meryl star in next?