Book Review
My Life As Julia Roberts: Snapshots of a Life
by Liane Langford
★★★★★
A highly amusing read about an interesting life, as Julia Roberts or not
Liane Langford is a former model, current art dealer, and has always been a Redi-Whip heiress (no kidding). I was familiar with her writings and her wit before I read this book. I followed her popular blog “A Walk in the Dark,” since early 2012 and when I opened up My Life as Julia Roberts – Snapshots of s Life and browsed the contents page, I immediately saw some familiar chapter titles. A few of those titles, such as “Bob Doesn’t Like Cats” (but he’s still a decent guy) and “Costco Sells Caskets” (and they actually do) are straightforward enough to give the unfamiliar reader a good idea of what was on Liane’s mind when she wrote them …but try to guess what “Here’s Mudd in Your Eye” is about before you read it.
The title of this book is drawn from Liane’s resemblance to Julia Roberts, and that she is still made aware of it today, especially when she’s wearing large, “I-hope-nobody-recognizes-me” sunglasses in airports and other places when celebs are often spotted. The chapters, which are accounts of notable events and remembrances in Liane’s life, aren’t in chronological order, but if you read the book from beginning to end and keep mental notes, you can put together a pretty clear timeline of this lady’s interesting life. If you recall Easy Bake ovens, Fresca, and don’t need to Google the movie Funny Girl to know who was in it, then you’ll enjoy this read all the more.
Liane has a way of telling a story that makes even a fairly mundane happening sound like it could be a potential script for a TV sitcom. She paints a vivid picture of the players here, particularly her mother, whom she called “Toby.” Toby is a quite a colorful character and Liane’s recollections of her are hilarious. In “It Only Comes Once a Year,” Liane recalls being six years old and excited when Halloween, her favorite holiday, had arrived. Toby, who seemingly forgot the occasion, made her a last-minute costume, that Liane has never forgotten. She clearly recounts, as her six-year-old self looked on in shock, as Toby calmly (but lovingly, I’m sure) “held a cigarette in one hand, scissors in the other, grabbed a sheet, cut holes in it drew a breath, and blew out smoke” and said; “Here, you’re a ghost.” Liane, then and still being an avid viewer of “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” could only image getting rocks in her pillowcase (the pillowcase also courtesy of Toby) instead of candy, just like Charlie Brown did when he went trick-or-treating.
Her account of a Thanksgiving Day dinner, as an adult, with an awesomely borderline-dysfunctional family, is another one of Liane’s “holiday favorites.” She tells of her hosts Guy and Ann (the latter greeted her arrival in just her bra and rollers in her hair, the former didn’t believe in deodorant, “even out of curiosity”), a grabby friend named Stan, two large dirty dogs, and wondering what to do “when you’re a hostage and there’s no SWAT team.” She at least made it out before the after-dinner game of Twister began (which was probably Stan’s idea).
Her more somber recounts are just as enjoyable reads. Her life at the time of the 9-11 attacks illustrates how such an occurrence makes us us stop and look around at our lives, knowing we will never forget any of the details of where we were, what we were doing, and who we were with at the time. Liane sure remembers who she was with at the time. Her brief time spent in a nursing facility, is written about with the right amount of wit to alleviate the gloom of the situation, which she ended up turning into a positive, even though I would have held on to my Ed Hardy stuff. As you read some of these chapters, you may think “what does all this have to do with the title of this entry?” but don’t worry; Liane always makes sense in the end. Well, almost always.