JULY 2022 - AudioFile
Actor Selma Blair recounts the story of her life, starting with her childhood struggles and continuing through her present challenges as a mother who has multiple sclerosis. Sounding vulnerable and authentic, Blair also shares her highs and lows with humor and wisdom. She powerfully expresses an array of emotions from moments of bliss to immense anguish, showing a total commitment to telling her story. Blair has an upbeat and loving quality when speaking of her happy memories and a heartbreakingly sad tone as she candidly shares difficult revolutionary moments that guided her to her true self. Compelling and inspirational, Blair pours out her experiences with sexual assault, excessive drinking, relationships, motherhood, and coping with a debilitating disease. D.Z. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 06/06/2022
Actor Blair revisits in this bold and candid debut her odyssey through addiction, trauma, and illness. Born in 1972 in Detroit, Blair was labeled as a “mean baby” for the “judgemental, scrutinizing” look she perpetually wore. As she reveals, this pained expression would seemingly foretell the fraught childhood and adolescence to come—from binge drinking throughout her youth to escape hurtful put-downs from her mother (“How can you be so beautiful from one angle and so ugly full face?”) to suffering depressive episodes after being sexually assaulted in ninth grade by her school’s dean. Later, after a suicide attempt in college, she was raped during a spring break weekend. Blair’s recollections are harrowing, but they affectingly set the stage for a story of triumphing over one’s afflictions as she chronicles her path to becoming an actor. After months of struggle in her early 20s, Blair landed an agent and went on to star in Cruel Intentions (1999) and Legally Blonde (2001) before having her first child and, years later, receiving a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 2018. Nevertheless, Blair, in her typical fashion, finds a way to transform her burden into an opportunity, sharing her experience of living with MS with astounding candor and grace. This compassionate and intelligent work will leave fans floored. (May)
From the Publisher
A GOODREADS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
“Elegantly expressed… Evocative… This generous, moving book… roams intuitively, assuredly, between past and present… For years Blair looked to astrologers, mediums, and healers to tell her story… She herself is the right person.”
—Susan Burton, The New York Times
"Blair engages with her MS starkly and movingly...[She] puts it all out there."
—Joanne Kaufman, The Wall Street Journal
“Selma Blair is not afraid to go there when it comes to sharing the ups and downs of her personal life — particularly in the wake of her 2018 Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis — but never before has she shared such shocking details from her past.”
—Kara Warner, People Magazine
“In Mean Baby, an intensely self-aware and cheerfully self-revealing Blair explores the abundant darkness arising from her fraught relationships with her mother, men, alcohol and, ultimately, multiple sclerosis. In different hands, this might make for a more painful read. But throughout her breezy narrative, Blair’s wry humor and her chatty, confiding tone make you feel that you’re spending 300 pages with a smart and, yes, slightly bratty new friend… Blair’s memoir…is funny and frank, a chance to spend time with a brave and big-hearted woman who’s grown up to be not so mean, after all.”
—Jennifer LaRue, The Washington Post
"A beautiful tale about how this person learned to love a new version of herself."
—Rachel Martin, NPR's Morning Edition
“Selma Blair has written a book on survival. Mean Baby, the first book released by the actor, examines the often darker moments of her life. From being violated by an educator during her childhood to seeking refuge in the bottom of alcohol bottles by age 7 and experiencing physical pain that she now believes could have been early signs of MS, she reflects back on it all.”
—Alex Portée, The TODAY Show
“Unlike many celebrity memoirs, which can read as vanity projects, Mean Baby is unflinching: Blair confronts her history of sexual assault, divorce, loneliness, and violence. She strove for honesty, for total transparency…Readers of Mean Baby will also be grateful for Blair’s generosity.”
—Samantha Leach, Bustle
"If you thought you knew Selma Blair, think again.”
—Marie Claire
"Riveting...As a child, actor Selma Blair was known as a troublemaker, a reputation she carried into adulthood. In Mean Baby, her raw, beautifully written autobiography, Blair recounts her difficult road—involving an addiction to alcohol and a complicated relationship with her mother—and shares how her multiple sclerosis diagnosis four years ago was, in many ways, what ultimately saved her."
—Kristyn Kusek Lewis, Real Simple
“Captivating and unflinching… Raw and real, Mean Baby is Blair's life in words — warts and all. And well worth the time because…it's also funny…uplifting…. After a half-century of searching, [Blair] appears to have found her truth... A dazzling and intense memoir.”
—Mike Householder, Associated Press
"Selma Blair is one mean baby and one mean writer! Blair honestly writes about the uncertainty, messiness, joy, and weirdness of living in a ‘broken’ body. Disability is not always constant or known and Mean Baby depicts this reality with compassion and grace.”
—Alice Wong, editor of Disability Visibility
“Mean Baby, Selma Blair’s brilliant book, demands attention. It grabs you by the collar and says listen to all that I have to say: about love, pain, motherhood, illness, celebrity, and the tidal ferocity that pours through all our lives. Read it and be caught in the voice of one of our luminous stars.”
—Esmé Weijun Wang, best-selling author of The Collected Schizophrenias
“Selma Blair will take every expectation you have and shatter it with this beautiful book. It’s less about illness than it is an effluence of hope, just when you can’t imagine anyone having the spirit to summon it. If you’ve ever felt broken or lost, you’ll find yourself on the pages of this book and maybe see a way to the high road when the author writes, To have been so lucky. The rejects and outsiders have spoken, Selma, and we’ve elected you Queen.”
—Mary-Louise Parker, best-selling author of Dear Mr. You
“Mean Baby is straight-up terrific — bold, intimate, sassy, profound — and a vital reminder that the hectic glitter of the exterior rarely reflects the hard-earned wonder of the interior. So, while you might reach for Mean Baby because of the author’s celebrity, you’ll read into the night for her candor, eye for detail, and stunning prose. In an embarrassment of riches, Selma Blair is as talented a writer as she is an actress.”
—Adrienne Brodeur, best-selling author of Wild Game
"Mean Baby is a fascinating exploration about the power of prophecy, of labels, and of one woman's determination to defy them all. Blair is a rebel, an artist, and it turns out: a writer."
—Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times best-seller Untamed and Founder of Together Rising
"Throughout Mean Baby, Blair demonstrates a rare level of self-awareness for someone who’s been encased in the celebrity industrial complex for most of her adult life...Blair writes with unflinching, unapologetic honesty about her trauma....[Mean Baby] fills in the gaps we didn’t even know were missing."
—Adam White, The Independent
"Blair revisits in this bold and candid debut her odyssey through addiction, trauma, and illness...Blair, in her typical fashion, finds a way to transform her burden into an opportunity, sharing her experience of living with MS with astounding candor and grace. This compassionate and intelligent work will leave fans floored."
—Publisher's Weekly, starred
“Actress Selma Blair always thought of herself as a sidekick or character actress, never a leading lady, but in this illuminating and authentic memoir, she takes center stage as the teller of her own story... The book's first and third parts, covering her childhood and her MS diagnosis (along with the birth of her son), respectively, are spellbinding… A compelling story… remarkably good writing.”
—Booklist, starred
Blair… candidly recounts the events of her life with refreshing honesty…Hilarious and heart-wrenching in equal measure…. In one moment, she discusses biting Seth MacFarlane on the hand, and in the next, she brings readers to tears while talking about her experiences with grief. Blair writes in blunt, witty prose, making this book hard to put down…Witty, funny, heartbreaking, and beautifully written. This book will be loved by fans of Blair’s work and of her MS advocacy.
—Library Journal, starred
“Painfully lovely...[An] elegiac contemplation of [Blair’s] life through the lens of a chronic illness that only recently made her past clear. For those seeking a similar sense of enlightenment, reading Mean Baby is a worthy and affecting undertaking.”
—Linda M. Castellitto, BookPage
9780525659495
JULY 2022 - AudioFile
Actor Selma Blair recounts the story of her life, starting with her childhood struggles and continuing through her present challenges as a mother who has multiple sclerosis. Sounding vulnerable and authentic, Blair also shares her highs and lows with humor and wisdom. She powerfully expresses an array of emotions from moments of bliss to immense anguish, showing a total commitment to telling her story. Blair has an upbeat and loving quality when speaking of her happy memories and a heartbreakingly sad tone as she candidly shares difficult revolutionary moments that guided her to her true self. Compelling and inspirational, Blair pours out her experiences with sexual assault, excessive drinking, relationships, motherhood, and coping with a debilitating disease. D.Z. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2022-05-17
An acclaimed actor reflects on her life, film career, and diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 2018.
Born outside of Detroit in 1972, Blair earned the nickname “mean baby” for the “judgmental, scrutinizing” expression she wore on her face from the day she was born. In fact, she was a “sensitive soul” who felt judged by others—in particular, her demanding, sometimes-cruel mother. At 7, Blair developed a taste for alcohol at a family Passover celebration and drank in secret after that, reveling in the feeling of “safety” alcohol gave her. She also suffered awful abuse. “I have been raped, multiple times,” she writes, “because I was too drunk to say the words ‘Please. Stop.’ ” A troubled teen, she continued to take refuge in drinking but also discovered a passion for literature and drama. After a suicide attempt in college, Blair found her footing in acting. She moved to New York City, where, after a year of struggle, she found an agent and landed her first movie role. Drinking and toxic relationships took their tolls, and she entered rehab in Michigan before moving to Los Angeles. An unexpected invitation to play a role in the 1999 film Cruel Intentionsbrought her fame. However, the binge-drinking continued, as did a series of unhealthy relationships (one of which turned into a short-lived marriage) and mysterious pains that racked her body. “I could feel it growing and spreading,” she writes, “but I had no idea what it was.” Single motherhood helped her curb drinking, but her fatigue and neuralgia intensified. A lifelong spiritual seeker who sought out psychics to help her make sense of her life, Blair finally received an answer to explain the physical roots of her pain: multiple sclerosis. Though the narrative occasionally meanders, the author offers a sharp, memorable account of her roles as celebrity and MS advocate that will have wide appeal to both fans and general readers alike.
A moving and eloquent memoir.