Overview

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Film. Women's Studies. I AM NOT ASHAMED, first published in 1963, is the absurdist tale of a forgotten movie star's unnerving decline. When sleazy journalist Leo Guild arrived at Barbara Payton's flophouse Hollywood apartment, he was surprised to find that the thirty-five-year-old former actress was working as a prostitute to support her alcohol addiction. He brought her cases of cheap wine, turned on the tape recorder, and she began to speak . . . Surreal and often depressing, I AM NOT ASHAMED is an anti-memoir: as Payton reveals intimate moments of her life, she slides down and down the wormhole of her memories and watches her life in numb horror. Unable to recover or make any changes, Payton remains locked in admiration of her brief Hollywood fame. A self-proclaimed con girl in specialized areas of living, Payton is pathologically self-destructive. Her favorite topic is men--how she used men to get ahead, and how they used her. In its bizarre frankness, I AM NOT ASHAMED follows in the autobiographical tradition of Jack Black's You Can't Win and Liz Renay's My Face for the World to See, and the literary tradition of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground and William S. Burroughs' Junkie.

Full Product Details

9781943679027

Table of Contents

Reviews

She wasn't the first starlet to come to a disreputable end, and there have been more since (although few suffered quite such a vertiginous decline in fortunes). Ultimately, there's a lot to be said for the lack of regret or hypocritical self-flagellation which normally characterises the Hollywood exile's memoir.--Minor Literature[s] But here's the thing, Payton's drunken ramblings and recollections (who knows how much are true or truer than you could ever imagine?) melding with Guild's jazzed-up pulp speak becomes something of a minor masterpiece (though minor is not exactly the right word here...). A dime store (in the best sense of the term) Notes From Underground--the bellowing of the underground woman, telling us there is something wrong with her looks (and most certainly her liver), filled with regret, self doubt, black humor, pride and touching reassurance that it might work out one day knowing damn well it won't.--Kim Morgan, Sunset Gun A few years earlier and a studio would have hidden her excesses from the press; a few years later and she would have beaten Jayne Mansfield at her own game. But Barbara doesn't wallow in what-ifs. She dishes out a few excuses, most of which so weak you know even Barbara didn't buy them, but she's not asking for forgiveness. She's telling you her story, and the least you can do is listen.--She Blogged By Night I Am Not Ashamed is more than just tawdry memoir. It is a book that also possesses an unforeseeable transcendence within.--Heather Drain

A few years earlier and a studio would have hidden her excesses from the press; a few years later and she would have beaten Jayne Mansfield at her own game. But Barbara doesn't wallow in what-ifs. She dishes out a few excuses, most of which so weak you know even Barbara didn't buy them, but she's not asking for forgiveness. She's telling you her story, and the least you can do is listen. <strong>She Blogged By Night</strong>

Author Information

Barbara Payton was born in Cloquet, Minnesota, in 1927. She starred in her first film in 1949 and soon after took the lead role in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, co-starring James Cagney. When her acting career began to decline, Payton appeared in low-budget films and on the covers of tabloid magazines, and later became destitute and increasingly dependent on alcohol and pills. In 1961 she was evicted from her apartment, and she was arrested for solicitation in 1962. She worked with the journalist Leo Guild on her memoir, the camp classic I Am Not Ashamed, in 1963. Four years later, Payton died from alcohol-related causes at the age of thirty-nine.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available