Friday, January 11, 2013

Babylon Confidential: A Memoir of Love, Sex, and Addiction by Claudia Christian (BenBella Books)


The story has been written and told more times than you can count; a gorgeous teenager flees a troubled childhood and lands in Hollywood. The handwriting is clearly on the wall, this won’t end well!

The story includes all of the usual suspects you expect in a Hollywood story; ego-fueled actors, directors and producers, millionaires and billionaires, rock stars and super models. Add a heaping helping of alcohol, drugs and addictions, mix with a handful of the usual hangers-on and requisite trips to rehab and rehab and rehab and rehab…you get the picture, and you have actress Claudia Christian’s memoir, Babylon Confidential.


Christian details her ongoing struggles with addiction that is at one turn familiar to the point of being commonplace in Hollywood tales and in another heart wrenching. While I don’t think the goal was to inspire folks struggling with the demons of addiction, Babylon Confidential does prove to be illuminating for family members or friends who may be trying to assist those in tackling an addiction.

One of the amazing things about Ms. Christian’s story is her ongoing survival in a churn and burn industry and the fact that in an era where late twenty-somethings pass themselves off as glee-ful high schoolers, a young Christian off played mature roles many years her senior.

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