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Overview
In her explosive new book, Roseanne Arnold once again breaks the mold and does the unexpected. She's written the book that no star at the top ever dares write: she blows the lid off what it's like to make it in Hollywood from the unique perspective of being a powerful player herself. As a woman who's seen it all, who created the life she wanted without much help from anybody, Roseanne Arnold tells the unvarnished, uncensored, raw and raunchy truth about what has happened to her since "Roseanne" became a hit. The transition from stand-up stardom, when everyone knew her jokes were hers, to the world of producers and writers who thought nothing of taking credit for her material. The battles to make "Roseanne" a show about a three-dimensional woman who's in control, not a woman who's a victim. The difference between how much power everyone on the outside assumed she had, how little she did have, and how hard she had to fight to get more. Roseanne talks unflinchingly about the painful side of being who she is: dealing with her family, her past, drugs, the attacks in the press. And just like any woman who's raising children, getting a divorce, getting married, or just trying to keep it together, Roseanne talks about her personal life and her relationship with her soulmate, Tom Arnold, in ways that many of us will recognize - though even Roseanne's most mundane day ends up being unlike anyone else's. That's because there is no one else like her. And no one else could have captured on the page the tough, wise, take-no-prisoners truth that Roseanne finally tells in My Lives.A funny memoir from the wisecracking female who has taken Hollywood by storm with her #1 rated show. Roseanne Arnold's newest tell-all covers show-biz, stardom, family, marriage, and more. Her bestselling Roseanne: My Life as a Woman sold 425,000 copies. Photos.
Editorials
Ilene Cooper
Not many people may remember it today, but five years ago, Roseanne (Do we really need more than one name?) wrote a book called, no surprise, "Roseanne". It dealt rather benignly with the members of her family, making them seem more madcap than malevolent. Well, a different Roseanne must have written this book, which is not surprising since she claims here to suffer from multiple personalities. This is a very angry book, and it's written from the perspective of a woman who claims to have been sexually and physically abused by both parents and abandoned by the rest of her family when she decided to go public with her revelations. She savages her ex-husband so wittily you almost feel sorry for the guy: "[Bill] moved on his own to L.A. to be a Sunset Strip hippie. Finding the work too demanding . 20. 20. he took a job as a night clerk in a motel." The first producer of her show, with whom Roseanne continually fought, fares worse: "hack son-of-a-bitch" is the least of her epithets about him. And, of course, her parents come in for the most vehement attacks of all. Anyone who has seen Roseanne plugging her new book on the talk shows (only those who interviewed her were allowed advance copies of the book) might well have noted that the woman with the number-one rated television show in the country seems profoundly depressed, and she categorically states that nothing has helped her state of mind--not the money, not the fame, not her reasonably successful marriage to second husband Tom Arnold. Though laced throughout with Roseanne's bitchy, funny take on the world, this book reveals a very sad woman, which, if even half the things she says about her life are true, she has reason to be.Book Details
Published
February 1, 1994
Publisher
Ballantine Books (P)
Pages
288
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780345378156