Publishers Weekly
★ 12/04/2023
Streisand’s long-anticipated debut memoir doesn’t disappoint. Utilizing her own journals, her mother’s scrapbooks, and interviews with colleagues and friends, the decorated singer and actor delivers a thoroughly enjoyable survey of her life and career that—even at nearly 1,000 pages—never overstays its welcome. Streisand begins with her teenage adventures fleeing her emotionally distant mother and stepfather’s Brooklyn apartment for Manhattan, where she and a friend went to see Broadway plays and where she eventually moved and got her first taste of showbiz success singing in nightclubs. From there, she dives deep into her key projects and famous relationships, writing of being booted off the Billboard top two by the Beatles (“Their sound was sensational, so I had no complaints”), developing stage fright during her star-making turn in the Broadway musical Funny Girl, and falling in love with leading men from Elliott Gould to James Brolin. The tone throughout is delightfully garrulous, often verging on conspiratorial: Streisand offers detailed descriptions of not only who she rubbed elbows with, but what everyone ate, what they wore, how the room was decorated, and what she really thought about it all (at one point, she returns a dress Phyllis Diller bought her so she can use the money to purchase fabric for a custom design). That combination of fastidiousness and looseness, mixed with Streisand’s natural humor, makes for a deliriously entertaining autobiography that gathers heft from the sheer breadth of its author’s experiences and achievements. This is a gift. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
Praise for My Name Is Barbra
"A 970-page victory lap past all who ever doubted, diminished or dissed her. . . . Exuberant and glorious. . . . There are just so many scintillating Streisands to contemplate over so many years: singer, actress, director, producer, philanthropist, activist, lover, mother, wife, friend, autobiographer."
—Alexandra Jacobs, New York Times Book Review
"The book is undeniably moving—it does not, even for a moment, read as false. . . . Streisand’s chatty, discursive presence hums on every page. . . . Riveting . . . . All the usual memoir forms rear their heads. There’s the sob story, the gallant bildungsroman, the louche chronicle of various addictive behaviors, the righteous making of an activist, the victory lap. Streisand’s book, in its sheer breadth and largesse, attempts to be all of these things, and thus becomes something incredibly rare. . . . If something interests her, then it is interesting, full stop. In a way, she draws on an old-fashioned idea of celebrity: to be a star is to be golden, and to make everything you touch look the same. . . . Streisand has never thought it necessary to contain herself, and there’s no reason to start now."
—Rachel Syme, The New Yorker
"The celebrity memoir I've coveted most is that of the singular Ms. Barbra Streisand. . . . We don't see a diva, we see a genius. . . . In a society that tends to value women's passivity while lauding their accomplishments in hindsight, it's a distinct pleasure to look back with My Name Is Barbra and marvel at how the real she came to be."
—Brittany Luse, NPR
“[My Name Is Barbra is] enlightening. It’s shake-your-head funny and hand-to-mouth surprising. The lady who wrote it is in touch with herself, loves being herself. . . . Streisand’s boundlessness, her capaciousness — the lack of precedent for her whole-enchilada ambitions, the daffiness, the sexiness, the talent, orchestration, passion, originality; her persistence and indefatigability; the outfits; the hair — were a watershed.”
—Wesley Morris, The New York Times
“My Name Is Barbra is not to be dismissed, even at its astonishing length. It shows a busy intelligence at work and a fair degree of self-knowledge. I find much to admire about Streisand in her memoir, including her refusal to play down her own innate power.”
—Daphne Merkin, New York Review of Books
"Everything you could want from a Barbra Streisand memoir. . . . Scintillating. . . . The memoir is as sharp, funny and refreshingly candid as Streisand herself."
—USA Today
“A gloriously massive memoir from a sui generis star. . . . What a talent, what a career, what a life, and what a treat to relive it all with this most down-to-earth of demigods.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"This memoir is as extraordinary as the woman who wrote it."
—Booklist (starred review)
"Charming . . . funny . . . . Chatty and sincere, the book reads like a conversation, complete with asides and self-corrections. . . . The effect is like she's sharing coffee cake with us. . . . It feels like it's Streisand telling us all the things she's wanted to say for all of her 81 years on Earth. . . . If you've ever been a fan, even if it has been a while, I can't imagine you'd want to miss it."
—Chris Hewitt, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"My Name Is Barbra dispels rumors and myths but doesn’t hold back on scintillating tales of love affairs, on-set drama and unfiltered anecdotes about her discomfort with fame."
—Los Angeles Times
“The question of her talent was never really in doubt. . . . In Streisand’s book, though, there’s more than just talent; we are shown craft, intelligence, a winning, rare curiosity.”
—Independent
Library Journal
★ 12/02/2023
Actor and singer Streisand elevates the ceiling for the standards of excellence in celebrity memoirs. Numerous times, she recounts her pleasure in editing and re-editing films, and it's a talent she's brought to her writing. Even more impressive than the book's size is that there are no dull chapters, paragraphs, or sentences. Streisand writes with invigorating passion and endearing humor about people and topics that matter to her. It's impossible to be bored when she is so enthusiastic, whether she's writing about feminist issues, love affairs, battles won and lost to create art on film and albums, or how different camera lenses work. Streisand booked her first Broadway musical at 19 and continued singing at a small club, where she had total control over her songs and comic patter. Control is important in her life and career. By age 28, she had won two Emmys, five Grammys, an Oscar, and a non-competitive Special Tony Award. When she takes readers behind the scenes of her films, it's truly a master class in filmmaking, demonstrating her prowess at crafting screenplays, directing, and editing. VERDICT This lengthy but invigorating, passionate, and reflective memoir will be in great demand for decades.—Kevin Howell
DECEMBER 2023 - AudioFile
This is a nuanced, opinionated memoir written and narrated by one of the greatest entertainers ever, EGOT-winning Barbra Streisand. While the early chapters sound a bit tentative, she comes into her own quickly. Her voice is in a lower register than in many of her most famous recordings, and listeners will likely be charmed by the conversational style of both her prose and performance. The production is peppered with the briefest of recorded excerpts; through those musical interludes we see Streisand's evolution from Brooklyn housing projects to Malibu compounds. Listeners will also likely enjoy her highly personal reflections on working with and knowing others such as Brando, Redford, Wyler, and her husband, James Brolin. Ultimately, Streisand sounds content. For her, this is significant. W.A.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-11-06
A gloriously massive memoir from a sui generis star.
When Keith Richards and Bruce Springsteen published 500-page memoirs, that seemed long—but as we learned, they really did have that much to say. Streisand doubles the ante with 1,000 pages. In addition to chronicling her own life, the author offers fascinating lessons on acting, directing, film editing, sound mixing, lighting, and more, as revealed in detailed accounts of the making of each of her projects. As Stephen Sondheim commented about her, “It’s not just the gift, it’s the willingness to take infinite pains.” The pains really pay off. With every phase of her life, from childhood in Brooklyn to her 27-year-romance with current husband, James Brolin, Streisand throws everything she has—including her mother’s scrapbook and her own considerable talent as a writer—into developing the characters, settings, conversations, meals, clothes, and favorite colors and numbers of a passionately lived existence. In the process, she puts her unique stamp on coffee ice cream, egg rolls, dusty rose, pewter gray, the number 24, Donna Karan, Modigliani, and much more. Among the heroes are her father, who died when she was very young but nevertheless became an ongoing inspiration. The villains include her mother, whose coldness and jealousy were just as consistent. An armada of ex-boyfriends, colleagues, and collaborators come to life in a tone that captures the feel of Streisand’s spoken voice by way of Yiddishisms, parenthetical asides, and snappy second thoughts. The end is a little heavy on tributes, but you wouldn’t want to miss the dog cloning, the generous photo section, or this line, delivered in all seriousness: “Looking back, I feel as if I didn't fulfill my potential.”
What a talent, what a career, what a life, and what a treat to relive it all with this most down-to-earth of demigods.
