I Am Not Ashamed

About this book

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Film. Womens Studies. I AM NOT ASHAMED first published in 1963 is the absurdist tale of a forgotten movie stars unnerving decline. When sleazy journalist Leo Guild arrived at Barbara Paytons flophouse Hollywood apartment he was surprised to find that the thirty-five-year-old former actress was working as a prostitute to support her alcohol addiction. He brought her cases of cheap wine turned on the tape recorder and she began to speak . . . Surreal and often depressing I AM NOT ASHAMED is an anti-memoir: as Payton reveals intimate moments of her life she slides down and down the wormhole of her memories and watches her life in numb horror. Unable to recover or make any changes Payton remains locked in admiration of her brief Hollywood fame. A self-proclaimed "con girl in specialized areas of living " Payton is pathologically self-destructive. Her favorite topic is menhow she used men to get ahead and how they used her. In its bizarre frankness I AM NOT ASHAMED follows in the autobiographical tradition of Jack Blacks You Cant Win and Liz Renays My Face for the World to See and the literary tradition of Fyodor Dostoyevskys Notes from Underground and William S. Burroughs Junkie.