The first thing to say about Mean Baby by Selma Blair is that it would not have been published if it hadn’t been written by a celebrity. The second is that it was clearly written by Blair and not a ghostwriter. The third is to wonder about the editorial process, which seems to a critical eye to be largely non-existent, in a book that reads like a first draft outpouring from start to finish, with little refinement throughout.
Blair is an American actor known for her roles in Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde and Hellboy. Her biography states that she was named a Time Person of the Year in 2017 as one of their Silence Breakers in the #MeToo movement, though there is no mention of this in the memoir. She is also the subject of the recent documentary, Introducing, Selma Blair (2021), which charts her life following a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 2018.
Subtitled A Memoir of Growing Up, Mean Baby is structured – and I use that word loosely – into three parts, Signs, Questions, Answers, with titled chapters that give an idea of the scattergun approach of the narrative: I, Selma, Elliot Again, Split/Screen, Brigadoon, Ducky Manor. On the face of it, there is plenty of interesting, important material. A complex mother-daughter relationship, a father who seems more like an arch-nemesis, a long battle with alcoholism, sexual assault, the highs and lows of Hollywood, tumultuous celebrity romances, the hardship of living with MS.
But while these subjects are repeatedly referred to, they are rarely scrutinised, as if Blair has confused reiteration with depth. The repetitions slow the narrative; there is little in the way of momentum. Part of this is explained by Blair’s arrested development, how she keeps repeating the same mistakes as the years go by. The tone can be self-pitying and there is the overarching sense that the author lacks perspective on much of what she’s discussing – at least, that’s how it comes across on the page. Questions such as, “Can you believe it?”, or multiple exclamation points within a single paragraph to highlight perceived injustices, attempt to get the reader on board but instead work to alienate us from the anecdotes of a difficult, privileged upbringing.
The book is all tell, very little show, full of feelings with a capital F: “He had a lock on her insecurities and could be critical...She was truly stunning...I was shook. Devastated. Crushed. In my acute panic, I rushed to self-destruction.” Here’s a summary of her first date with the fashion designer Jason Bleick (father to her son Arthur), who took her to a gallery that turned out to be closed: “He was stricken, mortified. Stunned.” Really?
Elsewhere, in irksome flash forwards, her MS is blamed for all sorts of erratic behaviour in the past. Getting ready for a Bottega Veneta party thrown in the early days of Mad Men, Blair downs shots on an empty stomach. Later, she has a drunken encounter with January Jones: “I figured it was because I hadn’t eaten and the alcohol amplified everything. Now I see it was the MS.” What about the possibility that it was all three? Similar back-dated logic is applied to a host of other situations and relationships throughout.
On the positive side the celebrity titbits enliven proceedings – Jones is funny and courteous, Kate Moss returns a bite from Blair, Karl Lagerfeld designs her wedding dress, Carrie Fisher lends her house as a venue, then turns up late to the ceremony. Blair is at her best when writing about her experiences of rejection as an actor. In a neat twist she gets her big break in Cruel Intentions by playing up the “mean baby” tag she was branded with as an infant. Occasionally, the celebrity stories bring moments of hilarity, possibly unintentional, as when she notes of the famous kiss scene with Sarah Michelle Gellar in that same movie, “I wasn’t attracted to girls, but I did enjoy the soft, whisker-free lips of SMG on mine”.
Other successes in Mean Baby include candid descriptions about life with MS, and the portrayal of Blair’s mother as, by turns, clever, callous, caring. Her vanity and desperation as she ages are particularly well done, like a real-life Blanche du Bois – “‘I look best in low lighting,’ she would say” – and the way in which this negatively impacts Blair’s own self-image is clear.
Too often however, the insights are trite, related in language that is pedestrian, hackneyed or sometimes (as with this description of Drew Barrymore) downright nonsensical: “But I count my lucky stars, the famous star is the dearest Drew.” Mean Baby is the story of a woman who wanted all her life to know what was wrong with her, but by the book’s end, this mean reviewer feels that the mystery remains largely unsolved.
