As a major Joan Crawford fan AND an advocate for children's rights, I feel compelled to comment. Firstly, it is necessary to separate Joan Crawford the actress from Joan Crawford the mother. MOMMIE DEAREST deals exclusively with the latter, not the former. Christina Crawford was not suggesting that her mother had no talent, and I do not believe that her goal was to destroy her mother's professional reputation. Rather, she felt it was important to expose the horrific reality she endured at the hands of an abusive parent who happened to have a highly positive public profile (part of which stemmed from her having adopted 4 children). Surely we as a society have evolved enough to know that child abusers can come from any race, any socio-economic circle, any profession - it shouldn't be difficult to believe that movie stars, with their fragile egos and often pathological need to succeed, can have major parenting deficits. And yes, obviously, this is a one-sided, subjective account - all autobiographies are! I doubt that any autobiography is objective. The reader should understand that Christina Crawford has provided us with HER perceptions, her recollections, of her childhood. We are being invited to see Joan Crawford, the mother, through Christina's eyes. And to be fair to Christina, there has been enough corroboration from reliable people who knew Crawford well, about specific aspects of Crawford's character (her obsession with cleanliness, for example), and of specific incidents referred to in Christina's book, that I for one do believe that, by and large, Christina has been truthful. It is also noteworthy that Crawford's son Christopher has corroborated what Christina has said. The twins have gone on record as denying that their mother was ever abusive - but it is possible that by the time the twins came along, Crawford had mellowed somewhat (this is not unusual as parents age, particularly when alcoholism sets in - and there is no doubt that Crawford was an alcoholic by the time she turned 50). It is unfortunate, strictly from a credibility perspective, that this book came out only after Christina discovered that she'd been cut out of her mother's will - but this does not mean that the allegations of child abuse are fabricated. Quite the contrary: a parent capable of excluding a child from his/her will may well be the kind of person who was abusive. Whatever your opinion of Crawford the actress (and I repeat that I am a huge fan), it is worthwhile to read her daughter's perceptions - not because it should influence your opinion of Crawford's talent, but because it helps to gain a more complete understanding of the very driven, ambitious and probably highly damaged person that rose to the top of the most competitive field in the world: movie stardom.