"Barbra: The Way She Is" by Christopher Andersen

There is a particularly curious branch of popular biographers, who determined to "tell it all" and "expose" private lives of celebrities, actually succeed only in making us - readers - feel ashamed for even reading this kind of books. Kitty Kelley is this kind of writer. "Get happy" about Judy Garland was such a book - tunnel vision only on gossip and dirt in such way that it completely put me off Garland. This one is just another example of sure-fire, well proven receipt for mass market success as it focuses exclusively on private life, gossip, dirt, warts and all of a woman who happened to be most successful female entertainer of the century. 

Christopher Andersen is so full of vitriol and deliberately spiteful that he hardly stops to catch a breath. Streisand is of course, very easy target since her massive success in 1960s basically just went on and on trough decades, until she came to be living institution and demigoddess so naturally along the way there are literary hundreds of bystanders, supporting players and co-workers who felt eclipsed by her stardom. Andersen compassionately (and gleefully) lists every single piece of dirt and gossip from these unfulfilled, sad creatures and waves them as a banner against Streisand who is presented exclusively as ambitious monster, without one single page dedicated to reasons why she behaves this way - or what it is that actually makes her so special and therefore successful. To Andersen's biggest regret and astonishment, she displayed amazing creativity, curiosity, bravery and let's say it, Midas touch, where neither time, changing fashions or anything else could undermine the fact that everything this lady touched produced multi-million hit, be it music, movie or even songwriting. 

For me, the root of the whole problem and dislike of someone who is obviously highly creative and successful public person is not only envy (its much easier to feel compassion for obscure artist who died in poverty than someone who goes from strength to strength) as much as the fact that Streisand arrived in early 1960s when women were still told what to do by husbands/producers/managers and Streisand was never a pushover - read between the lines find for yourself, from the very first contract, very first recording and even first nightclub performance, than-embryo Streisand insisted to have complete control over everything that has her name attached to it. The fact that her consequent work consistently achieved exclusively huge sales comes almost as annoyance to Andersen who never actually discusses her work, he is too busy gossipping with cleaning ladies, grocery shop salesmen and people who immensely hate Streisand because she did not gave them autograph once when they ambushed her in a restaurant (and she was just biting into barbecue, with oily fingers). Since he is not interested in her work, Andersen goes about Streisand's son being gay and her mother suffering from Alzheimer - its that kind of the book that actually gives you headache as sheer amount of envy, spite and obsessive negativity becomes tiresome. Anderson (and his spiritual sister, Kitty Kelley) could easily write book about any of us and gleefully expose our classmates testimonials.