So much of Lena Dunham’s new book is about the agony of being in the public eye that it’s hard to understand why she would shuffle into the spotlight again. But shuffle she has, writing a second memoir, Famesick, that’s out today. When she tells her mother, the artist Laurie Simmons, that she wants to write about her life again, Simmons moans, “Oh, Lena … It just sounds so sad.”
Dunham is as candid as ever — the words “shocking constipation” appear alongside descriptions of her endometriosis-related pain — and there’s plenty of gossip. Her relationship with musician and producer Jack Antonoffis described in detail, as is her professional breakup with Girls co-showrunner Jenni Konner and her love-hate dynamic with co-star Adam Driver, who she says “could be short-tempered and verbally aggressive.” The heart of the book may be her alternately exasperated and loving relationship with her parents, Simmons and fellow artist Carroll Dunham, and her sibling, Cyrus, who drifted away for a time when the fallout from Dunham’s fame became too much. (There’s also a series of pets, like the pair of hedgehogs she buys off Craigslist.) But if it’s indie-era celebrity stories you’re after, we’ve got you covered. Below, a who’s who of Famesick, ordered by how well they come off in Dunham’s (debatably reliable) estimation.
