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Alana Massey

All the Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers Hardcover – February 7, 2017

by Alana Massey (Author)

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"Alana Massey's prose is to brutal honesty what a mandolin is to a butter knife: she's sharper; she slices thinner; she shows the cross-section of a truth so deftly--so powerfully and cannily--it's hard to look away, and hard not to feel that something has shifted in you for having read her." -- Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams From columnist and critic Alana Massey, a collection of essays examining the intersection of the personal with pop culture through the lives of pivotal female figures--from Sylvia Plath to Britney Spears--in the spirit of Chuck Klosterman, with the heart of a true fan. Mixing Didion's affected cool with moments of giddy celebrity worship, Massey examines the lives of the women who reflect our greatest aspirations and darkest fears back onto us. These essays are personal without being confessional and clever in a way that invites readers into the joke. A cultural critique and a finely wrought fan letter, interwoven with stories that are achingly personal, All the Lives I Want is also an exploration of mental illness, the sex industry, and the dangers of loving too hard. But it is, above all, a paean to the celebrities who have shaped a generation of women--from Scarlett Johansson to Amber Rose, Lil' Kim, Anjelica Huston, Lana Del Rey, Anna Nicole Smith and many more. These reflections aim to reimagine these women's legacies, and in the process, teach us new ways of forgiving ourselves.

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Grand Central Publishing
Publication date

February 7, 2017
Dimensions

5.75 x 1 x 8.63 inches
ISBN-10

1455565881
ISBN-13

978-1455565887
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Deborah Nelson
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Paperback
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Joanna Biggs
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Hardcover
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"ALL THE LIVES I WANT is a brilliant collection on the things women think but do not say. The essays delight and infuriate in equal measure, and Massey's sharp and poignant writing solidify her place as one of the best cultural critics of her generation."
―Jessica Valenti, New York Times bestselling author of Sex Object: A Memoir

"Alana Massey's writing often makes me uncomfortable, and sometimes makes me feel like resisting--but it also makes me laugh, and always makes me think, and always--certainly--makes me feel. Her prose is to brutal honesty what a mandolin is to a butter knife: she's sharper; she slices thinner; she shows the cross-section of a truth so deftly--so powerfully and cannily--it's hard to look away, and hard not to feel that something has shifted in you for having read her."―Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams

"Brilliant and tender where you want it to be, incisive and damning where you need it to be, ALL THE LIVES I WANT gives us the chance to reconsider how we've absorbed the public lives of women so that we may ask new questions about how we live our own."―Mychal Denzel Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching

"With brutal honesty, sly wit, and natural suspicion toward our most commonly held cultural assumptions, Alana Massey renders each and every subject she lands on a million times more interesting. From Sylvia Plath to Princess Diana, Fiona Apple to Amber Rose, Massey examines the most complicated and confusing female celebrities to shape the modern psyche, gracefully reflecting our shared sympathies, blind spots, and vulnerabilities along the way."―Heather Havrilesky, author of How to Be a Person in the World

"Alana Massey's book is a diamond, in both the glitter of its prose and its capacity to cut through inferior things. This is a manual for survival disguised as culture writing. A stunning and necessary book."―Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood

"Through the prism of female icons and celebrities, both deified and demonized ALL THE LIVES I WANT offers a poignant and often hilarious dissection of how pop culture shapes and consumes the women it elevates. Embedded in personal anecdote, Massey draws vital attention to, and urges celebration of, (the overlooked) sites of resistance therein. Massey's work, with prose both poignant and acerbic, is an invocation towards empathy-a call to women to be generous with ourselves and each other. We do ourselves a great favor to listen to her."―Natasha Lennard, columnist and contributor at The New York Times, The Nation, The Intercept, and Fusion

"Finely wrought . . . Massey is best when she pinpoints the particular viscousness of living under patriarchy."
―New York Times Book Review

"At times funny and refreshing, other times honest to the point of cruelty, but always genuine in her words, Massey's prose drips with passion and flare... A collection that celebrates and critiques the lives of everyone from Britney Spears to Courtney Love to Massey herself, ALL THE LIVES I WANT is a sharp, insightful, and hypnotizing debut..."―Bustle.com

"Together the chapters add up to more than a lived trajectory: They are an argument for girls' complicated selfhood and underrated power, an examination of the ways in which female celebrities have been misrepresented and reclaimed... Massey seems to aspire to a kind of complicated soulfulness. Her prose is measured and cool."―Slate.com

"Alana Massey is rightfully hailed as one of the sharpest voices today. When she's writing about women and pop culture, there's no one I'd rather read."―New York Observer

"Searingly insightful reminders of shared experience-- humor-filled rafts of humanity in a sea of contemporary TMZ and Trump-fueled despair. Massey's prose captures barely perceptible nuances of feeling we have all felt and holds them up to hilarious effect--all while discussing Daily Mail headlines and Gwyneth Paltrow's kids' multilingual tutors."―i-D Magazine

"Though Massey discusses celebrities she doesn't personally know, she writes about them with intimacy, drawing connections between their lives and her own... this book reminds readers how celebrities' seemingly dazzling lives can provide insight into their own."
―Publisher's Weekly

"Massey engages lovingly but thoughtfully with the lives and work of her subjects, and she offers herself the same even-handed treatment. As she writes her own feminist canon, she insists on the veracity and value of her own presence and voice: Courtney Love and the Olsen twins and Britney Spears, imperfect and compelling, belong in books-which means that Alana Massey does, too."
―New Republic

"[Massey] has a seemingly uncanny ability to perceive things in a way that goes far beyond what's visible on the surface, and then, through her writing, transform the way others see them as well, revealing truths and offering insights not only into the lives of others but also, of course, about our own."―Nylon.com

"For those who have fantasized about being BFFs with all their favorite celebrities, you have to read Alana Massey's incredibly smart book analyzing the way society lifts and destroys famous women."
―Cosmopolitan

"A beautifully articulated, personal collection of cultural criticisms . . . All The Lives I Want is the book we want to be dissecting with all our girlfriends in the months to come."―Refinery29.com

"Massey's collection of essays strikes a nerve with her poignant and grittier form of celebrity worship... enlightening and powerful."
―Library Journal

"Massey traverses the corners of the internet that are home to Plath-esque female melancholy, resuscitating girlishness and female pain as objects worthy of study in their own right. She reminds us that girls' expansive documentation of their own vulnerability is fundamentally a project of making meaning of their (our) lives. She insists we bear witness."―Feministing.com

About the Author

Signed with Grand Central Publishing since June of 2015, Alana Massey is a writer whose work covers culture, labor, identity, and mortality. The popularity and substance of her writing has earned her the attention of publications like The Awl, The Columbia Journalism Review, and Forbes, who have all published profiles of the author. Massey counts authors like Leslie Jamison, Molly Crabapple, Heather Havrilesky, and Rebecca Traister as admirers of her writing, in addition to her sizeable Twitter following that has tripled in size each of the last two years. Massey's essays, criticism, reviews, and reporting appear regularly in publications like The Guardian, New York Magazine, Elle, The Atlantic, Hazlitt, Buzzfeed, and more.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grand Central Publishing; First Edition (February 7, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1455565881
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1455565887
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 1 x 8.63 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,757,729 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8,874 in Author Biographies
- #18,218 in Women's Biographies
- #49,410 in Memoirs (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.2 200 ratings

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Olga Gamer

While I enjoyed some of the essays

Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2018

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In this collection of essays, Alana Massey tackles contemporary musical icons (Britney, Nicki, Courtney), female writers (Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion), and other celebrity, larger than life figures such as Anna Nicole Smith and Amber Rose. With a mix of wry humor, anecdotal research, and her own personal experiences, the writer attempts to analyze these women and shed new light on them. While I enjoyed some of the essays, i.e, the Gwyneth versus Winona, Amber Rose, and the Olsen twins, I skimmed some of the others, i.e, Scarlett Johanssen, which didn't grab me at all. While it was a good collection of essays, it didn't keep my attention throughout and I would have liked to see more punch to these essays.

2 people found this helpful

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Suzan Eraslan

A Truly Unique and Sparkling Perspective on Women and Celebrity

Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2017

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There are tens of thousands of essays on women and celebrity in the world, and yet Alana Massey manages to cut a path perpendicular to this well worn road. Bypassing the traditional sociological analysis of the influence these women and girls have on our culture, Massey examines how our culture influences them. In “There Can Only Be One,” she litigates the media-created feud between Nicki Minaj and Lil’ Kim as the product of cultural misogynoir that will only “allow” one tough and sexy Black woman to rule hip hop at a time. Essays on Anna Nicole Smith and the “crazy ex-girlfriend” label applied to women as seemingly dissimilar as Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopes and Princess Di critique our treatment of women who break the traditional boundaries of class and gender rules, often to be met with derision even when they suffer tragedy.

But All the Lives I Want is not simply cultural criticism; Massey digs several miles below the surface, past intellect and emotion into the spiritual meaning of our one-sided relationships with these famous figures. Her essays don't attempt to humanize these women (though that does happen as a byproduct of her singular empathy) but rather to make a compelling case that each of them fulfills the timeless necessity as the individual incarnations of the many faces of femininity. My favorite, “The Queen of Hearts: An Alternative Account of the Life and Crimes of Courtney Love”, presents the rocker and actor (more famous for being a widow than an artist in her own right) not as a parasitic nagging wife (and accused murderer by her husband’s fans), but as an aspirational icon of chthonic power, a destroyer figure, and necessary model of “female brutality.” Her elevation of the Lisbon sisters in The Virgin Suicides alongside the many clusters of sisters scattered across Greek mythology, interwoven with the genuinely mystical love she shares with her own sister (born on the same day under the sign of Gemini), is almost unbearably beautiful. The essay is not just a coruscating love song to sisterhood, but punctuated throughout with a needle sharp critique of the failure of imagination of the male gaze that fetishizes and sexualizes sisterly love while missing the deep spirituality of the connection.

Massey’s time at Yale Divinity School may seem incongruous with writing about something so “trivial” as celebrity, but she effortlessly clarifies the metaphysical quality of feminine fame; by comparison, all others writing on the topic see only as if through a glass, darkly.

14 people found this helpful

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Lauren Matthews

Courtney Love, Sylvia Plath among many others

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2017

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All the Lives I Want is a collection of essays covering women celebrities, the public perception of them and a lens into how that public perception is skewed due to their gender. Something that I found very refreshing is the diversity of the women chosen for the essays, Winona Ryder, Lil Kim, Courtney Love, Sylvia Plath among many others. Despite their very different backgrounds and times in which they were famous the author is able to show parallels in how the public was conditioned to see them. And despite their roles as celebrities, the author also shows similarities that everyday women can relate to in how they are expected to behave. It is an intelligent book, while still being an easy read and I think a very good book for women of all ages to read, as well as anyone else interested in the different expectations on women's behavior and the consequences society places on them when they do not meet those expectations.

2 people found this helpful

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moreglitterplease

Smart and Sharp, Honest and Enlightening

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2017

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I love essay collections. Not just because they are small and digestible but they give you a broader view into the author's brain. And Ms. Massey's brain is one that should paid attention too. Her observations are sharp, her perspective very clear. I read a lot of essays and I have to say, this is one of the smartest collections I've found.

She understands women, at least women like me. And the profiles she includes in this book are of people I too have both admired and/or reviled. But each woman is fairly considered, which-in the case of ScarJo-caused me to reconsider my animosity.

And while I do love the more typical naval gazing essays, Ms. Massey's pieces in ATLIW read more as cultural and sociological explorations rather than personal. Though she deftly weaves bits of her life into each essay, the subjects she discusses are the stars. Also, the cover is gorgeous.

5 people found this helpful

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Jes

it never makes me feel better about the world we live in

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2017

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This book makes me incredibly frustrated. It's one of the most anti feminism things I've ever read. Although I'm thinking deeper, it never makes me feel better about the world we live in. Suggestion, don't write what the normal weight for women should be and then say how much you weigh (a skinny amount). What could I possibly gain from that, that I'm still not good enough?

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Amazon Customer

Knowing that this is a book of pop culture criticism ...

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2017

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Knowing that this is a book of pop culture criticism made me reticent to start, as so often that means a cold analysis that aims at objectivity but really just lands on cruelty. But Massey turns the critique outward at the society that judges our pop culture icons just as frequently as she turns her critical and incisive gaze on the celebrities themselves. The result is a reimagining of well-known celebrity stories wherein all of our foregone conclusions about the morality and judgment and (lack of) genius of these women are thrown out and replaced with a gentler but not condescending portrait of lived fully lives, expertly navigated, and often triumphant despite the public's critique. Whether you're a fan of Lil Kim or Dolly Parton, you will find a connection to the women in this book and to Massey herself, whose personal connection to the celebrities makes it intimate without being overly self-important.

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Top reviews from other countries

Katie

Thoughtful, necessary and fun reading on pop culture and femininity

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 5, 2017

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I was deeply saddened to see a review on here that describes this as a book for 'gender extremists'. On the contrary, I found this to be a very thoughtful and necessary exploration of the intersection between pop culture and femininity.

In this collection of essays Massey examines a range of female celebrities, stars, writers and fictional characters, from Britney Spears to Sylvia Plath to Scarlett Johansson in 'Lost in Translation', in order to reveal society's understandable but often dangerous and unhealthy preoccupation with famous women and their bodies. As she does so, she reveals nuggets of information and anecdotes about her own life and about how her own consumption of these women has influenced her choices and decisions - something that I think most readers, and especially female readers, will be able to identify with and see mirrored back at them.

This is also a very fun read - especially for anyone interested in celebrity culture and/ or who has grown up alongside these women and is of the 90s/ millenial generation (the essays open with a light-hearted question that soon becomes serious in its implications of how we define womanhood: are you a Winona or a Gwyneth?). My favourite chapter was the final one, 'On Joan Didion and Personal Mythology as Survival', which makes essential feminist reading. I've already bought this twice for friends and will definitely revisit it in the future.

One person found this helpful

LJBentley

An entertaining book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 14, 2019

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All the Lives I Want is a collection of essays that celebrates women. It holds a mirror up to society and shows how women are not so subtly pitted against one another or how they are sexualised or how they are forced into submissive roles. It truly is a book to put fire in your belly.

Part memoir/part journalism, Massey’s penned thoughts percolate in the brain giving you food for thought long after you have finished reading.

All the Lives I Want – Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen to be Famous Strangers by Alana Massey is available now.

One person found this helpful

John O'Dwyer

Feminist essays that home in on your heart

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 15, 2017

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A collection of feminist essays that's really enjoyable to read and filled with the insight, nuance and empathy that regular readers of Alana's work know so well. It's an expertly-crafted debut featuring a wide spectrum of emotions and styles which complement each other. It's a book you gladly invite into your heart.

Kindle Customer

Gossip Magazine on Steroids

Reviewed in Canada on December 3, 2018

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I'm not sure why I read this at all. I'm not into the deep secret lives of celebrities, especially to dissect and make mostly negative and sad.

JLH

I didn't enjoy this at all.

Reviewed in Canada on August 17, 2019

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It felt superficial and was poorly written.

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