Confessions of a Rebel Debutante [Hardcover]

Anna Fields (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 15, 2010

A delicious, laugh-out-loud funny Southern-fried memoir about growing up a "proper young lady"...or not.

A strict regimen of Southern-belle grooming should have prepared Anna Fields for a lifetime of ladylike behavior.

But it didn't.

As it turned out, Anna-a smart, outspoken, bookish girl- was a dud at debbing. After being kicked out of cotillion classes, the "Rebel Deb" left North Carolina to seek her fortune. Her first stop was Brown University-right in the heart of Yankee-land-and then the crazy world of Hollywood talent agencies and celebrity-packed restaurants. After a disastrous stint as Diana Ross's personal assistant, Anna headed off to the Big Apple, where she worked for one of Bravo's Real Housewives. It's a rollicking, unlikely success story from a natural-born story­teller.

Sharp, sweet, and sassy, Confessions of a Rebel Debutante proves you can take the girl out of the South, but you can't take the South out of the girl!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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 Diariesknockoff. The overall effect is occasionally entertaining but ultimately ephemeral. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

Anyone who has ever been a debutante or a rebel knows that the two involve mutually exclusive attitudes, yet Fields takes what should be an oxymoronic state of mind and makes it work for her like some crazy hybrid confection: soft on the outside, hard in the center. From childhood high jinks in a sleepy southern town where she tried but failed to achieve vaunted deb status, to becoming a soap-opera scriptwriter in the heart of demon Yankeeland, Fields chronicles a lifetime of near-miss disasters that pile up like so much roadkill. Following the lows of Brownies and boarding school with the highs of Brown University and Beverly Hills, Fields’ escapades resemble a Six Flags over Georgia thrill ride as she endures further demeaning stints as Diana Ross’s personal assistant and on-demand tutor to the gnarly teenage daughter of a reality TV star. Armed with her What would Scarlett do? mantra, Fields shows how a rebellious southern belle can survive almost anywhere. --Carol Haggas

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (April 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399156313
• ISBN-13: 978-0399156311
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,310,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anna is a New York-based television writer, author, comedienne and confirmed "Rebel Deb." But just like many little girls with big dreams, , she started out a chubby, bookish, cotillion class drop-out growing up in the tiny Southern town of Burlington, North Carolina.

After leaving the South, graduating from Brown University and surviving years of celebrity madness (including hair-raising stints as Diana Ross' personal assistant and tutor-slash-slave to socialite-slash-"Real" Housewife of New York, Jill Zarin), Anna has completed her memoir "Confessions of a Rebel Debutante," forthcoming from Putnam, Ltd., in April 2010.

Anna is a celebrated TV writer, penning scripts for CBS' "As the World Turns" and "Guiding Light" and ABC's "One Life to Live." Her works have been produced and performed in theatres nationwide, from New York to San Francisco. She enjoys long walks on the beach, quiet, romantic dinners and walking her dog, Jax, throughout the former crack houses-turned coffee shops of the East Village.

Today, more Rebel than Deb, Anna is busy working on new additions to her blooming series, including the forthcoming Rebel Debutante's Book of Love and The Rebel Debutante's Big-A*# Cookbook. For more of Anna's rants, raves and revelations about life and love, check out www.RebelDebutante.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Confessions of a Rebel Deb? June 27, 2010

By Gertie VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The idea behind Confessions of a Rebel Debutante was interesting. How does a girl prepped from age eleven to be a debutante get kicked out of Cotillion and how will she adjust to the culture shock of living above the Mason-Dixon Line? Unfortunately the book fails to answer these questions. The book is essentially little anecdotes set loosely in chronological order. You're left want more information about some and wondering why others were even included.

During the Honor Cabinet Inquisition I wanted to know more since this is when Anna is kicked out Cotillion and branded a rebel. Instead there is bullet list which lightly touches on what went on and I was left wondering if finding Ella Mae on the strip could really be the reason for all this fuss.

Fast forward to Anna's senior year in college (you'll get use to fast forwarding the author speeds through 4 years of college in 15 pages) she decides to get a job. She tells us about the first job she had at sixteen working in a coffee shop. Why she is telling us this story now, 5 years after it happened. It seems out of place and should have been told several pages back when she was sixteen and not as a flashback when she's twenty-one.

The rest of the book flies through her attempt at acting, moving to LA and moving back to the east coast to attend NYU, all the while continuing to skim over the interesting parts. Hello! You're an assistant to Diana Ross why wouldn't you go into more details? Instead there is a ton of name dropping during Anna working at Summer Stock. No story behind Summer Stock just I saw this person, who is now famous, this is how terrible they behaved.

Individually each anecdote in the book is interesting and some are funny. If you heard one told at a party you'd enjoy it, but lumped all together in a book they leave you scratching head and saying, huh?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars terrible Book April 28, 2012

By Sarah W

Format:Paperback

I borrowed this book from a friend and it was awful. I would never recommend this book so please dont waste your money. The book was really boring and I am surprised it was published. I think the author would be better suited in a different line of work.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Review of Confessions of a Rebel Debutante November 14, 2010

By Lydia TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

There were things I loved and things I rolled my eyes at in this book. First of all, I want to say I did not pick this book up expecting it to be the end all and be all of memoirs - I expected something light and fluffy, and it was exactly that. My issues with the book were, in spite of some flashes here and there of laugh out loud humor, the first half of the book was fairly boring. It wasn't until the story spiraled into a "tell all" regarding notable names like Julia Stiles, Julia Roberts, Diana Ross and other celebrities that it started to get more interesting... if not a little dramatic.

While I enjoyed learning about the south from Anna Field's point of view, I think she was not as much a rebel as she tries to make herself out to be. I mean, rebel or no, she still attended a well-off girls finishing school, went through all sorts of classes and rebelled in ways that kids in every day schools do. In spite of that rebellion, everything was taken care of for her, she wasn't thrown out of school, she still got an ivy league education and it was just hard to feel sorry for the poor, oppressed girl from the South.

I can't whole-heartedly recommend this book, but I will say this: If you want a book that will give you some fun sayings, some interesting looks at how the "rich" of the south live, then I'd at least skim through it.