For nearly 40 years the Emmy, Oscar, and Golden Globe winning actress and director Christine Lahti has captivated the hearts and minds of her audience through iconic roles in Chicago Hope, Running on Empty, Housekeeping, And Justice for All, Swing Shift, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, God of Carnage, and The Blacklist. Now, in TRUE STORIES FROM AN UNRELIABLE EYEWITNESS: A Feminist Coming of Age (Harper Wave, April 10, 2018; ISBN: 978-06-266367-2; $26.99; 224 pages) Lahti shares her story in this heartbreaking and hilarious collection of interrelated personal essays.
In this poignant collection, Lahti focuses on three major periods of her life: her childhood, her early journey as an actress and activist, and the realities of her life as a middle-aged woman in Hollywood today. In TRUE STORIES, Lahti recalls leaving her comfortable suburban home in Birmingham, MI and entering college in 1968, where her eyes became open to the sexism and misogyny all around her-no longer something to be accepted as "the way things are." She writes about her early years in NYC, pursuing acting and struggling to make a living-as a waitress, as a mime (yes, a mime), and even working for a "professional dating service." It's where Lahti began to learn the difference between suspension of belief (a skill that would later help her on stage) vs naivete i.e. "being that gullible young woman with stars in her eyes and sweaty armpits who desperately wanted to believe she was so much more than just someone's escort."
Lahti recounts stories of how she made her way in show business, despite the sexist culture. In "Walking" she shares the life-changing moment when a casting director promised her work on two national commercials-IF she'd have sex with the director. In "S**t Happens," she examines her need for perfection and her struggle to balance making a living with being a responsible artist--one who tries to only put positive three-dimensional images of women out into the world (during a time when many of the "good" parts in film and television were demeaning to women). The chapter culminates in her 2008 Golden Globe win, during which she was in the bathroom when her name was announced. Yes, s**t happens. In the incredibly funny "What I Wish I'd Know About Love Scenes" Lahti dishes about what really goes into the love scenes we see on screen and reveals who some of her favorites have been (including Al Pacino, Bradley Cooper, among others).
Lahti also shares deeply personal stories about her roles as mother, wife, and daughter. In "Kidnapped" she writes with raw honesty about her miscarriage and the difficult early days of being a new mother and finding her way as a parent. In "Mamma Mia," she recounts the heartbreaking suicide of her bipolar sister. And in "Brother" she shares details about the complicated relationship with her brother, whose borderline personality disorder threw their family into havoc for years. "These are the stories that altered me in some way. They chronicle events when something inside me stirred or quaked. They were a shift in my focus. A tremor up my spine. A hot flash of injustice, of shame. A humble reckoning with my own imperfections. An acceptance. A forgiveness. A way to survive," writes Lahti. TRUE STORIES is about the power of storytelling to affirm and reframe the bedrock of who we are, revealing that we're all unreliable eyewitnesses when it comes to our deeply personal memories. But it's Lahti's raw authenticity that actually makes her a reliable narrator. Told in a wildly fresh, unique voice, and with the unshakable ability to laugh at herself time and again, this is Christine Lahti's best performance yet.