Although Fields, a standup comedian and writer for As the World Turns
, bemoans non-Southerners who “prefer to believe I grew up with Jim Bakker–style televangelists hoarding Confederate silver,” she dishes out plenty of stereotypes when recounting her own missteps up North—New Yorkers, for example, are “crammed into tiny little apartments... like sardines” and they all dress in black, and the subways are just awful. Fields's memoir skips from one set of anecdotes—boarding school in North Carolina, college at Brown, misadventures in Hollywood, living as a struggling writer in New York—to another, with occasional digressions intended to reflect a down-home common sense leavened by a rebellious streak. (As she remarks early on, she was groomed to be a debutante, but never did get to have her coming-out party.) Most of her stories are, however, unremarkable, and neither her experiences nor her insights stand out. Things pick up when she begins taking gratuitous swipes at celebrities she's encountered, from Julia Stiles (arrogant) to Diana Ross (“crazy-ass”); a later misadventure working for one of Bravo's Real Housewives
reads like a Nanny Diaries
knockoff. The overall effect is occasionally entertaining but ultimately ephemeral. (Apr.)
