“The voice of her generation…or a voice of a generation” arrived at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in a beautiful tailored suit and with a giant smile. After reading a particularly emotional passage from her latest book, she introduced her close friend, Andrew Rannells, and together they hopped into a bed made up just the way she fashions hers in real life. They spent the next 90 minutes discussing their friendship, their celebrated work, and the ins and outs of the pop culture life that gave birth to Lena Dunham’s unputdownable memoir. 

As enjoyable as this event was, FAMESICK is 10 times as funny, entertaining, enlightening and thought-provoking --- a real tour de force.

"Dunham is such a funny and touching writer, and no matter how bad her experiences are, readers will laugh along with her.... As one of the most talented and thoughtful members of her generation, I hope that this truly is a new beginning for her."

Dunham understands what it is like to be misrepresented on the internet, to be trolled and bullied, to have damage done to her personal relationships due to the unkindness of strangers. In her book, she does not shy away from the painful truths of what fame did to her health, her friends, her lovers and her family. It is a no-holds-barred deep dive into everything she has observed and experienced since her first independent feature film, Tiny Furniture. 

Dunham went on to create, direct, write and star in HBO’s “Girls,” a very funny and insightful series about twenty-somethings managing life in New York City. A New York native, Dunham’s perspective was filtered through the character of Hannah Horvath, a liberal arts college grad from the Midwest who encounters the Big Apple one crazy situation at a time. The show was a hit. It ran for six seasons and brought her fame and money, but a lot of internal and external strife as well.

The goal of FAMESICK is for Dunham to tell her story in her own words and to set straight the many awful tales of Hollywood craziness that the internet has invented about her, around her and for her. Her well-known artist parents, to whom she is very close, and her brother figure quite prominently, as do her friends and lovers, including her former fiancé, Jack Antonoff. Dunham is such a funny and touching writer, and no matter how bad her experiences are, readers will laugh along with her.

However, it’s the friendship that Dunham strikes up with her production partner, Jenni Konner, that’s the hardest story to hear --- how they bonded over “Girls” after being put together as a team, how Konner’s family became Dunham’s second family, and how much she grew to depend on Konner through the highs and lows of TV, as well as during her medical traumas, of which they are serious and plentiful. 

This Hollywood situationship self-destructs during their second show-running effort, “Camping,” an HBO series that Dunham mostly hands over to Konner due to her many emergency stays in the hospital. It is a sad story and a cautionary one about women working together in a major studio in Hollywood. Still, Dunham treats Konner (and herself) with grace and emotional truths that readers will feel along with her.

FAMESICK is a book about becoming famous and chronically ill, a combination that almost killed Dunham several times. She is direct about her issues and how they made her dependent on those around her. Who does and doesn’t help her is a tally that is heavily weighted towards those who left her because they couldn’t deal with the chaos that her fame and health problems brought to their worlds. She deserved better, and she makes that clear without casting complete blame on those who perpetrated her greatest fears upon her.

That night in Brooklyn, laughing with Rannells, who has been a fair- and foul-weather friend to her, Dunham seemed happier, grounded, as intelligent and funny as we’d expect, and free in a way that she hasn’t portrayed herself before. As one of the most talented and thoughtful members of her generation, I hope that this truly is a new beginning for her.