I don’t know why I can’t seem to write a post about Trainwreck by Sady Doyle. I read it over two months ago and while I was reading it, I really enjoyed it. But for some reason I can’t find the motivation. And now, at this point, it has been so long all is fuzzy. Is it a sign that it wasn’t as good as I thought it was? I dunno.
The book is about women who dare to be public and human. The trainwreck is a public woman who seems to be on top of the world and then crashes and burns and we take delight in watching the flames. Think Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, and though she doesn’t include her, Jennifer Aniston. A good many of the women Doyle talks about are musicians or actors but she also dips into literature — Mary Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Bronte — and politics — Monica Lewinsky and Hillary Clinton. Some of the analysis is good, some not so much. The historical aspect seems a bit of a stretch since the whole trainwreck thing requires celebrity and media and back in Bronte’s time there wasn’t quite the level of public scrutiny and invasion of privacy that we have these days.
Doyle also is selective about who she chooses to write about. Britney and Whitney get brought up in chapter after chapter. She mentions Miley Cyrus once or twice but Cyrus doesn’t end up fitting into Doyle’s framework so she gets dropped. And the Kardashians are not even mentioned at all.
And while much of what creates a trainwreck is wrapped up in social policing of women — their bodies, sexuality, gender normativity, is she friendly or a bitch, an object of fantasy or does she dare to have a brain and speak her mind — Doyle’s analysis is positioned as though everything is imposed from the outside onto these women as though they have no agency whatsoever. In some ways seems like Doyle objectifies the women as much as the trainwreck phenomena does.
Women are definitely treated differently than men. Doyle uses David Foster Wallace and Sylvia Plath as an example. DFW’s mental illness is a tragedy and doesn’t cast a big shadow over the way we read his writing while Plath is crazy, her death sensationalized, and we look for clues to her instability in her poetry. Plath’s mental illness and suicide define her and her writing in a way that is does not for DFW. But I am not sure Plath actually fits Doyle’s trainwreck definition because Plath wasn’t exactly a celebrity while alive and much of the trainwreck-ness doesn’t occur until after the fact of her suicide. I think there is a bunch of different stuff going on there, similar definitely, but not the same.
But it is clear that even when they are public superstars women get the short end of the stick compared to men every time. Just think of Britney Spears and, say, Justin Bieber. Spears is run over the coals whenever she makes a misstep. Bieber, sure we make fun of him but you don’t see stories about his cellulite or his poor fashion or romantic partner choices. It’s more like, oh there goes Bieber, doing something stupid again, what a dope! And then we move on.
Thinking about it, I am not certain putting a label of trainwreck on how public women are treated is all that useful. Doyle makes it seem like a unified set of events and circumstances but really everyone’s mileage may vary. It’s more of a catch-all for a variety of things that aren’t always the same. Plus calling the women trainwrecks — because they are such a disaster you can’t look away — makes me uncomfortable because it labels women as disasters and plays into the very things that Doyle is criticizing.
That said, I did find the book interesting and full of insight into how public women are treated. Every female celebrity has to walk a fine line and I can only imagine how stressful that must be. It definitely makes me more sympathetic to some of the odd and downright weird behavior some women exhibit. Going forward, I will be more likely to stop and think about the whats and whys before jumping on the dishing dirt bandwagon.
This all seems very similar to how I felt about this book. I didn’t dislike it, but in a lot of cases I thought Doyle’s argument ended up being more thesis-driven than evidence-driven. However! Anne Peterson has a new book out on a similar topic which sounds like it will be everything I wanted Trainwreck to me!
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Jenny, that’s a good way to looking at the book – thesis driven rather than evidence drive! If you read the Peterson book and think it good, you have to be sure to post about it! 🙂
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Wow this sounds fascinating. I can see why you’re having trouble pinning this one down, one thing I will say – my mother had a serious mental illness. As I write my memoir and look at her life, I’m absolutely staggered by how much sexism there was that I didn’t even recognize at the time. Is absolutely internalized so much bullshit re women I didn’t even see it. And I came of age during and after the second wave…..so that’s why I’m intrigued. Glad you wrote about it even tho you’re ambivalent and fuzzy…..that’s good….
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Valorie, You will probably find this book really interesting. It is sadly a perpetual thing how much sexism is tied up in much of mental illness from illness itself to its diagnosis and treatment. In regards to trainwrecks, the sexism is also hard to see there too because, while obvious, it is called something else, made to seem benign, etc and then it gets easy to be swept up in all the laughing and finger pointing and gossip without once stopping and thinking, hey, something is not right here.
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I have seen a lot of people making fun of Bieber’s hair (I noticed this because when Walker was 15 his hair looked much the same, and then Bieber started doing weird things to his and Walker tried to change his style so he wouldn’t be compared to the singer anymore).
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Jeanne, Ah, Bieber’s hair, yes it does get made fun of but it doesn’t define him or trap him or become front page tabloid news like a woman’s weight or poor fashions choices do. He just gets to be ridiculous in a way most women do not.
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This sounds very interesting. The flaws that you mention are unfortunate. However, a book of this nature inevitably would be full of opinions on some hot button issues so the author likely could not avoid going off in to some controversial directions.
Mika Brzezinski, who was recently attacked by Donald Trump on Twitter, talks and writes about these issues a lot.
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You did a great job writing about a book you finished two months ago – bravo! If I don’t write about a book within two weeks of finishing it, I just move on, because I’m afraid I’ll lose my steam – and my memories of the book!
Females in entertainment are definitely held to a different standard of appearance and behavior than men. When men do “weird” things it’s quirky, endearing, or a sign that they’re deep or something. Women are just called crazy.
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Some books are worth the time even if they are flawed. This one sounds like it would make you think about the different perceptions of successful women.
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It definitely seems like women are the ones most often labeled as trainwrecks even though there are plenty of male celebrities who also do some crazy things. This does seem like it would be an interesting read.
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This book sounds fascinating! It’s going on my TBR list…and I have to say, I would never have known it had been two months since you read it! 😉 Great review!
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it seems like the author had a good idea but then found there were not enough individuals from recent past to make enough of a book – so she added some in from history even though they didn’t really fit the description of trainwreck.
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Perhaps more detailed accounts with a smaller set of examples might have worked better. Gender, class and race all figure in this rather shameful trainwreck myth making.
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I have books like this one–as in I really liked them (or maybe not) and wanted to write about them, but I could not raise the effort. So now, do I try and dredge up my recollections? I have this weird finishing thing that I like to know my reading experience is complete by having written about the book. Anyway, strange to think of Mary Wollstonecraft as being an example of a ‘trainwreck’. And I am not surprised women and men are judged differently.
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Trainwreck is a good book on what we notice about women in our everyday lives.
It is a mix of sexism, attraction, and criticism towards women who follow their dreams to the top.
What I believe is that women get noticed a lot more than men and everyone wants to see what they’re up to.
Doyle explains the fascination society shows in successful females and people judging them when they suddenly become someone or do something that is considered unlikely for their nature.
Overall, it’s a good read and some women will even relate to it as they read it.
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Well, at the very least it was provocative. And enough so that you could scrape together some thoughts about it, a considerable time (and undoubtedly many books – SO many books) later.
For me, I think this kind of delayed-review-don’t-review is often a case of rushing onwards for the idea/story, too quickly to flag/note as I might like to, with some books.
But sometimes, I also feel like there are a lot of very specific examples being used to shore up a thesis and one of them alone doesn’t seem to stand out (enough to take a note) but is still an important part of a whole argument, but it throws off my usual review process.
So, in other words, sometimes I think it’s me and sometimes I think it’s the book. Profound, eh? 😀
In any case, enjoyed your review!
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