So Many Limbos

So, I thought that as the anticipated Bunny Day approaches that I would be sitting in a different headspace than I currently am. I thought that repairs would be finished and that we would have some calm and some sunshine. Instead I am in the middle of many forms of limbo. Waiting on the bank to call us back about some financing. Waiting on a landscaper to tell me if I can save the bush I love but that needs to be removed so that we can put in a sump pump. Waiting on one cat to eat. Waiting on another to calm down enough for her vet appointment.

It’s been hard to sleep. Hard to get through even comforting routines. It’s been so much stress and many problems coming in hideously overlapping circles. It’s like I’m suspended in it, and going nowhere except to the next problem. But in the midst of this I can be grateful for one thing — my reading slump seems to be in the final stages of healing. Which is great, because this is when I need books the most: the moments where I’m having trouble just sitting in my own skin.

The Draw of the Tell-All

I am not one for the celebrity memoir, but I can definitely understand their appeal. It’s learning about a world that most of us can only imagine. It’s the inside gossip. It’s feeling a part of something more glamorous than trips to the bank or the grocery store. The better memoirs also contain origin stories and denouements about when the lights were not burning and the absence when they faded.

I have read a few of these books and I have been fortunate enough to read good ones. Modern or contemporary fame doesn’t interest me much, but the golden age of Hollywood? Oh, yes, I will read that.

Which brings me to today’s book, Barbara Payton’s I Am Not Ashamed. If you don’t know who Barbara Payton was, you are forgiven. I was actually introduced to her and her book through Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley on TCM, and a screening of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, a 1950 James Cagney film. Payton writes a memoir that apologizes to no one — though she does indeed have a lot to apologize for, including racism and homophobia. It’s the story of her journey to Hollywood, her success, and then her eventual descent into cheque fraud and prostitution.

Fast Money Quickly Gone

It perhaps seems like a very old story. Payton comes to Hollywood, makes some money, and then rapidly loses it and becomes desperate just to make ends meet. What’s unique about Payton is that she doesn’t really blame Hollywood or the studio system for making her into someone she wasn’t at the start. She makes it clear that she was always mercenary. Always ready to do whatever it took to get ahead. She doesn’t apologize, but there is no blame here. She doesn’t expect your sympathy; she just wants the reader to listen. As a warning, there is sexual violence in this book and descriptions of assault, including sexual assault and harassment.

I agree with the famous Barbara Stanwyck’s assessment of the book’s title to which she replied, “Well, she should be.” Payton does not run from detailing her own bad behaviour, but at the same time that is what makes this memoir readable. She doesn’t run from anything. She just tells you what happened, like a friend she hasn’t seen or spoken to in a long time that asks how she is. It’s this kind of honesty that is so compelling to read.

The Glow of Film

Like every other Hollywood memoir, a key part of this book is the magic of film and being a part of that world. The book is a bit skimpy on these details. Payton talks extensively about the money she used to earn and the things she used to be able to afford, but if you are looking for a snapshot of the glamour scene, you should look elsewhere.

There’s some nostalgia for the glorious past, but even while Payton speaks about Cagney and Peck and her successes, they feel painfully distant. Like she can’t quite go back to those days because they are too far away, too different, too painful. Especially considering where she was writing from.

If you’re curious about the ending of Payton’s story, it isn’t very pretty. In early 1967, Payton was found passed out beside a dumpster and, after a hospital stay, was released to the care of her parents. A few months later she died from heart and liver failure. She was only thirty-nine years old.

Will the Cat Stop Screaming?

For some reason Bubastis has just recently entered into a period of mourning over the lost basement space, and she expresses this by screaming at the top of her lungs in front of the blocked off doorway. She doesn’t do it constantly, but has an absolute dark gift for choosing just those moments when I most feel frayed or else when we have shut off the TV and are trying to have the quiet, peaceful wind-down before bed or before some kind of rest.

Then she screams. And I love her, but I have gotten so many headaches in the last few days because of her.