Book Review: MY NAME IS BARBRA The Memoir To End Memoirs

It has been all the talk since it was announced: the Barbra Streisand memoir MY NAME IS BARBRA.  The news outlets carried the announcement, and so did every social media account, as everybody shared the news that they had pre-ordered the book.  Well, this fan of over fifty years was one of those people talking about it, and on November 7th, along with everyone else, my copy arrived in the mail and I dove right in.  But all i had to read was the prologue and I was logged onto my apple account to buy the audiobook.  I could tell by the way the hardcover was written (in just that few pages of prologue) that this was a well-written book and I knew that I just had to hear it in Barbra Streisand’s voice.  Thus began an incredible few weeks with the best memoir/autobiography I have experienced since 1980, when I read Lauren Bacall By Myself.  I read my first autobiography when I was eleven - it was Errol Flynn’s My Wicked, Wicked Ways (I was a very precocious child), and I devoured celebrity autobiographies all my life, until sometime in the Nineteen Nineties, when my own life became more interesting to me (also, I read some pretty bad books, which may have turned me off on celebrity memoirs).  In the years since I turned my back on celebrity autobiographies, I have read only two:  Jane Fonda My Life So Far, and Helen Reddy The Woman I Am (both pretty good books) but THIS story was one that I was certain I wanted to know - and knowing it from the Lady’s own lips was, quite clearly, the only way to go.

And It is wonderful.

Obviously, the people willing to spend the time and money to read My Name Is Barbra  are already fans (the hardcover is 992 pages long, the audiobook is forty-eight hours and fourteen minutes, the former has a retail price of forty-seven dollars and the latter can be acquired cheaply with a membership to Audible - not a “membership” person, I picked up mine on apple for thirty-one dollars).  There is also a Kindle version for nineteen dollars.  So it is pretty clear that this is an expense, especially if you’re going to go the way I went, and get both.  I don’t like spending money (requests from the proper channels for a reviewer’s copy went unanswered) but when it came time to pony up with the pennies, I did not hesitate.  I had my hard copy in my hand and I still paid the extra thirty for the audiobook, and I will never say I regretted it.  And I’m going to tell you the best way to enjoy this book, even as time consuming as it is, because you, my fellow Barbra Streisand fan, are going to love it.  

The audiobook for My Name Is Barbra is a thing of beauty, a joy to experience, and the reason for that is that 1) Barbra Streisand is a very good writer, 2) Barbra Streisand is a world class storyteller, and 3) Barbra Streisand ad libs!  Just pressing PLAY and letting Barbra Streisand’s voice bring the narrative directly to you is such a treat that you can’t help but smile.  For weeks I have been walking around New York City with my noise canceling headphones on and an enormous (underline it) smile on my face.  As Barbra Streisand reads her fascinating story into the microphone, she has no trouble going off script.  Many are the times that she will throw in little asides, little jokes, little exclamations, and, as you listen to the book, you find yourself waiting for the next one.  So, one or two chapters in, I decided to go back to my hardcover edition and look to see if the moments that I thought were ad libs really were.  I was right!   It became like a little game I played with myself.  If I was listening while away from home, the double-check game was my pleasure, and if I was listening at home, I would read the physical book while listening to Miss Streisand’s recording, which was equally a pleasure.  The audio was already a treat but those additional little comments made it into a treasure.

There is also the matter of music that is played during the audiobook.  When the story gets to the point where Barbra Streisand has become a recording artist, she frequently discusses artistic choices that went into the creation of recordings, and, out of nowhere, you find yourself listening to snippets from “Miss Marmelstein” and “The Shadow of Your Smile” and demos of “Evergreen” and it, so very much, enhances the listening experience.  And these backstories are wonderful looks into her artistic nature, greater glimpses into how important the storytelling was to her, all this time.  It will really open your eyes to your own perceptions of Barbra Streisand over the years.  Speaking personally, I was a kid when I started listening to the early albums and I thought that this was the way that singers recorded their albums.  Listening to Barbra Streisand talk about how people (read: the producers… and Arthur Laurents) responded to The Barbra Streisand Album made me hit pause on the audiobook and flip over to Spotify to listen to the album, and I realized that, in 1963, these theatrical, kooky, dramatic musical monologues were out of the norm.  All these years I thought they were the standard, but listening to this book I learned that they were, that she was, considered far from the norm.  Fascinating.  I was so happy that I took the time out to listen to that album right after hearing the stories.  And that became the way I enjoyed the rest of the book.  Listen to a chapter, listen to the album, listen to a chapter, listen to the album.  It is time consuming but what care I?  I was walking around New York City with the biggest smile ever on my face (or nodding my head yes and saying, “Uh-huh” over and over).  Eventually, I had to do the TV specials, too.  And the movies.  Listen to the chapter, watch the special.  Listen to the chapter, watch the movie.  And I was in heaven, in every way that a mere mortal can be in heaven.  And you will be, too.  If you’re a fan.  But if you’re not a fan, why do you want to do this?  If you’re not a fan, why are you reading this review?

Now, there is something that I should mention to you, if you’re the kind of person that listens to other people, which I shouldn’t be but sometimes I am.  Don’t let people take the joy of this experience away from you.  About halfway through the book, I had to take a few days off from it because somebody shared a meme on my Facebook page, where I had been doing a sort of running commentary on the book (it was hilarious).  The meme was a kind of tic-tac-toe layout using the book graphic and a series of squares with a list of activities, and at the top it said “THE MY NAME IS BARBRA DRINKING GAME - Drink any time Barbra does one of these things”.  Now, I’m not going to lie - it was funny.  But it also made me hyper aware of things that other people were criticizing about the book, things that people were making fun of, which I won’t repeat here, because I don’t want to dump that on anyone else.  I was suddenly aware of other peoples’ negativity and it was getting all over my joy, and I wasn’t able to listen to the book for a day or two - until I said to myself, “To heck with all those people,” and I reclaimed my joy. I went back to smiling all the time (or being quite cross at the number of times people in Barbra Streisand’s life did her wrong).  I was living for every detailed description of every outfit and every meal (and I was hungry all the time, especially for coffee ice cream).  I was happily placed in every single setting by the visceral visuals of rooms walked through and experiences lived through.  I learned things about a woman and artist that I have adored for what is, essentially, my entire life.  And it made me happy.  The My Name Is Barbra experience has been one of pure joy for me, especially given the way I chose to take the journey, using all the tools available to me, from the book, the audiobook, the albums, the specials, the movies, and the photos.  There are forty glossy pages of black and white or color photos in the book, as well as photos at the tops of chapters.  It’s like having an index or souvenir program so that you can see the people about whom she is talking and the projects about which she is reminiscing.  You also get a little look into certain aspects of Barbra Streisand’s artistic vision and personality, thanks to some of the photo layouts.  My two favorites in those forty glossy pages are a page of headshots and a page of her favorites of her album covers.  It was really interesting to see the headshots that she chose to put in this memoir, and see how she likes to see and present herself; it was really fun to see which of the album covers she liked, and, more interestingly, which ones she omitted.  These are just some of the little personal moments of interesting introspection and personal pleasure to be found in the My Name Is Barbra experience, if you simply give yourself over to it, and lean into it, which, obviously, I did.  I encourage people to do so, especially the fans, because it’s a great read, its a really interesting story and history, and it’s the best memoir I have ever read (it still feels funny to say “read” when I did the audiobook, but that’s what it is) in my lifetime of consuming celebrity memoirs.  I say get a copy and dive in.  Swim in the Streisand waters til you get all pruny, and be thankful you did.  It is one heck of an undertaking, masterfully executed, and worth every penny and every minute spent.

My Name Is Barbra is a a Viking publication available everywhere in hardcover, audio, and Kindle.  Find a link to the product’s Amazon page below.

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