Mississippi Library Commission Blog: On Carrie, Debbie, and Books

Thursday, December 29, 2016

On Carrie, Debbie, and Books

Debbie Reynolds broke into acting in the early 1950s and headlined in classics like Singin' in the Rain and The Unsinkable Molly Brown. (Did you know that her movie Tammy and the Bachelor was based on the book Tammy Out of Time by Mississippi author Cid Ricketts Sumner?) She gave birth to her daughter Carrie Fisher on October 21, 1956.

Carrie Fisher came into my life when I was two. My parents took me to the drive-in theater, where we saw Star Wars on the big screen. I, of course, have no recollection of this momentous event, but I grew up with the films and their characters. I never minded being Princess Leia on the playground. (Daisy Duke, not so much.) She was courageous, beautiful, and she suffered no fools. Really, what little girl wouldn't want to emulate her?

Like many, I was saddened to hear of Fisher's death on December 27 and her mother Reynolds's death the next day. Their close familial ties say much of their mother-daughter bond. Also, both ladies were possessed of such grace and style... and love of the literary! Reynolds wrote three memoirs about her life, most recently 2015's Make 'Em Laugh. Fisher, too, wrote three memoirs, as well as several novels and screenplays. Her latest, The Princess Diarist, came out last month.

If you, too, are mourning Reynolds and Fisher, why not check out one of their books or try one of these that explore the love between mothers and their daughters?