""Elizabeth Gilbert has a new memoir out." The mere sentence radiates gentle inspiration-watercolors, billowy pants with elephants printed on them, sparkly truthtelling in a big straw hat. Gilbert had an estimable career as a journalist and a writer of fiction before she published " Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia," in 2006, a book that became not just a best-seller or even a phenomenon but something more like a cultural paradigm."
"Gilbert's autobiographical account of a yearlong, post-divorce, mid-thirties rediscovery of herself was read by millions, many of whom, when they picture Gilbert, likely see Julia Roberts, who starred in the film adaptation, which grossed two hundred million dollars worldwide. Upon hearing that Gilbert has written another memoir-her first proper return to that deliriously, exclusively personal form since "Eat, Pray, Love," although she's published four other books in the interim-"
She rose to fame with a massively popular memoir and an image of carefree self-discovery. After gaining wealth, she experienced existential unease and began using money to pay friends' therapy, tuition, weddings, and houses. Cinematic success amplified a plucky, adventurous public persona. Lavish generosity and newfound privilege complicated personal freedom and exposed the improbability of ordinary people reproducing that life. The narrative places these behaviors against the 2008 financial crisis and shows how fame, money, and insecurity intersect and reshape relationships.
Read at The New Yorker
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