Elizabeth Renzetti
Guest host Laura Lynch talks to Elizabeth Renzetti about her new novel, Based on a True Story. Augusta Price isn't the kind of woman you'd invite to an intimate dinner party. Nor is she someone you'd want to count on for anything. She is an unlikeable British actress, a has-been who's self-centred when she's sober and self-destructive when she's inebriated. Which...
Guest host Laura Lynch talks to Elizabeth Renzetti about her new novel, Based on a True Story.
Augusta Price isn't the kind of woman you'd invite to an intimate dinner party. Nor is she someone you'd want to count on for anything. She is an unlikeable British actress, a has-been who's self-centred when she's sober and self-destructive when she's inebriated. Which is pretty much all of the time.
From word one, the central character of Based on a True Story is transparently awful.
She's managed to drink and snort her way out of a successful television career - she can't even go into rehab without getting kicked out.
Augusta Price has messed up her friendships and ruined her relationship with her only child and his father.
And yet, there is something about her that appeals, even when she smells like a distillery and behaves like a diva. Which, in part, explains why a young newspaper reporter, Frances Bleeker, agrees to ghost write her memoir and travel with her to Los Angeles.
Based on a True Story is Elizabeth Renzetti's debut novel. She is an award-winning journalist and columnist at the Globe and Mail and she has worked in the paper's London and Los Angeles bureau.