Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up

Selma Blair Beitner's memoir is a funny and frank exploration of her life, including her addiction to alcohol, devotion to her mother, and moments she flirted with death. It also explores the power of prophecy, labels, and one woman's determination to defy them.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 09 May 2023
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

The Instant New York Times Bestseller


Funny and frank, a chance to spend time with a brave and big-hearted woman who's grown up to be not so mean, after all.


Jennifer Larue, Washington Post

Grabs you by the collar and says, "Listen to all that I have to say: about love, pain, motherhood, illness, celebrity, and the tidal ferocity that pours through all our lives."


Read it and be caught in the voice of one of our luminous stars.


ESM & WEIJUN WANG

The first story Selma Blair Beitner ever heard about herself is that she was a mean, mean baby.


Although Selma went on to become a celebrated Hollywood actress and model, she could never quite shake the periods of darkness that overtook her, the certainty that there was a great mystery at the heart of her life.

Over the course of this beautiful and, at times, shocking memoir, Selma lays bare her addiction to alcohol, her devotion to her brilliant and complicated mother, and the moments she flirted with death. There is violence, love, true friendship, the gift of motherhood, and, finally, the simultaneous devastation and surprising salvation of a multiple sclerosis diagnosis.


A fascinating exploration about the power of prophecy, of labels, and of one woman's determination to defy them all.


Blair is a rebel, an artist, and it turns out: a writer.


GlenNON DOYLE

I laughed out loud more than I cried.


Frances Ryan, Guardian

Weight: 254g
Dimension: 128 x 196 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780349013848