
Desperately Seeking Something
A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls
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Narrated by:
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Jaime Lamchick
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By:
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Susan Seidelman
About this listen
This program includes the song "Loveless Love" from The Feelies album Crazy Rhythms (1980). It appears courtesy of Bar/None Records.
“Director Susan Seidelman's memoir is enhanced by narrator Jaime Lamchick's lively cadence and bright intonation.”—AudioFile
The funny and insightful first-person story of this trailblazing movie director of the 80s and 90s whose fearless punk drama, Smithereens, became the first American indie film to compete at Cannes, and smash-hit Desperately Seeking Susan led to a four-decade career in film.
Starting out in the mid-70s, a time when few women were directing movies, Susan was determined to become a filmmaker. She longed to tell stories about the unrepresented characters she wanted to see on screen: unconventional women in unusual circumstances, needing to express themselves and maintain their autonomy. Her genre-blending films reflect a passion for classic Hollywood storytelling, mixed with a playful New Wave spirit, informed by her years living in downtown NYC.
Seidelman continued to shape American pop culture well into the 90s, directing the pilot of the iconic TV series Sex And The City, focusing her sharp lens on the changing place of women in American society, and helping to fundamentally reshape our self-image in ways that are still felt today.
Raised in the safe cocoon of 1960s suburbia, Susan Seidelman wasn’t a misfit, an oddball, or an outlier. She was a “good-girl” with a little bit of “bad” hidden inside. A restless teenager, she dreamed of escape and reinvention, a theme that would play out in her films as well as in her own life. Because she loved stories, a high school guidance counselor suggested she become a librarian, but she had her sights set further afield.
In 1973, she left the Philly suburbs, enrolled at NYU’s burgeoning graduate film school, and moved to NYC’s Lower East Side. There, she found herself in the right place at the right time. New York City was falling apart, but out of that chaos came a burst of creative energy whose effects are still felt in American pop culture today. Downtown became a vibrant playground where film, music, performance art, and graffiti cross-pollinated and where Seidelman chronicled the lives of the colorful misfits, oddballs, dreamers and schemers she met there.
It’s all in DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING. Seidelman not only has a keen perspective on the times she’s lived through—from her Twiggy-obsessed girlhood through the Women’s Lib movement of the early 70s, the punk scene of the late 70s, Madonna-mania of the 80s, to the dot-com “greed is good” 90s, and beyond—she tells great stories.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
©2024 Susan Seidelman (P)2024 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Interwoven with fascinating behind-the-scenes detail, Seidelman vividly traces the evolution of her artistic vision, combining the strong, feisty heroines of classic screwball comedies with the playful, postmodern spirit of New Wave film. It’s an enthralling look at a trailblazing filmmaker’s perseverance and vision."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Seidelman offers a revealing peek into her four-decade career in Hollywood. The author delivers an unguarded portrait of her life, telling it her way. Seidelman’s films have always reflected her hopes for a more just society and a world that allows women to tell their stories; her book also demonstrates those themes."—Kirkus
"Susan Seidelman has directed and created some of the most iconic and audacious characters of our time—her new book is a dazzling encapsulation of them and of her life’s work. Part time capsule and part memoir—her gritty “I’ll show you” determination will inspire any woman who wants to make her mark on the world. 'Desperately Seeking Something' is a super-relatable, unputdownable tour de force. I just love this book!"—Marisa Acocella, New York Times bestselling author of CANCER VIXEN
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Story
The music of Yes indelibly shaped the original sound of progressive rock. But the true tale of this landmark band goes well beyond headline-making albums like Fragile and Close to the Edge. In this book, Kevin Mulryne tells the absorbing story of the final Yes album of the 1970s, Tormato, uncovering myriad fascinating twists and turns for the first time.
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A fascinating read.
- By Preston M. Frazier on 10-20-23
By: Kevin Mulryne
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A Memoir of My Former Self
- A Life in Writing
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anne Enright, Aurora Dawson-Hunte, Ben Miles, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. “Ink is a generative fluid,” she explains. “If you don’t mean your words to breed consequences, don’t write at all.” A Memoir of My Former Self collects the finest of this writing over four decades.
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The writing. I would read the phone directory if Mantel wrote it. wonderful collection.
- By Anonymous User on 09-22-24
By: Hilary Mantel
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The Path to Paradise
- A Francis Ford Coppola Story
- By: Sam Wasson
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great American dreamers, and his most magnificent dream is American Zoetrope, the production company he founded in San Francisco years before his gargantuan success, when he was only thirty. Through Zoetrope’s experimental, communal utopia, Coppola attempted to reimagine the entire pursuit of moviemaking. Now, more than fifty years later, despite myriad setbacks, the visionary filmmaker’s dream persists, most notably in the production of his decades-in-the-making film and the culmination of his utopian ideals, Megalopolis.
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Narrator was awful
- By Cyrus Nowrasteh on 12-17-23
By: Sam Wasson
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Carrie Fisher
- A Life on the Edge
- By: Sheila Weller
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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A remarkably candid biography of the remarkably candid - and brilliant - Carrie Fisher. Sourced by friends, colleagues, and witnesses to all stages of Fisher’s life, Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge is an empathic and even-handed portrayal of a woman who - as Princess Leia, but mostly as herself - was a feminist heroine, one who died at a time when we need her blazing, healing honesty more than ever.
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Need a different narrator or director?
- By Brad on 12-24-19
By: Sheila Weller
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Film Studies, Second Edition
- An Introduction
- By: Ed Sikov
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Film Studies is a concise and indispensable introduction to the formal study of cinema. Ed Sikov offers a step-by-step curriculum for the appreciation of all types of narrative cinema, detailing the essential elements of film form and systematically training the spectator to be an active listener and critic. He treats a number of fundamental factors in filmmaking, including editing, composition, lighting, the use of color and sound, and narrative.
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Lovely read.
- By Dewey Gallegos on 08-12-23
By: Ed Sikov
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Zero Gravity
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Zero Gravity is the fifth collection of comic pieces by Woody Allen, a hilarious prose stylist whose enduring appeal has been savored since his classics Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Mere Anarchy. This new work combines pieces that have appeared in The New Yorker along with 11 written exclusively for this book, each a comic inspiration.
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Where’s the rest of the book?
- By Brett Dewing on 12-26-22
By: Woody Allen
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New York Nico's Guide to NYC
- By: New York Nico
- Narrated by: New York Nico
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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What makes New York City the greatest city in the world? As one of the foremost chroniclers of New York’s local legends and urban glory, New York Nico has thoughts. Nico gets asked a lot of questions about his hometown. Where’s the best slice, pastrami sandwich, cup of coffee, vintage store, or bookshop? In this must-have city guide, New York Nico takes readers on an epic tour of his 100 can’t-miss NYC spots, including food, shopping, and so much more.
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good variety of spots
- By M. Rogers on 12-01-24
By: New York Nico
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Do Something
- Coming of Age Amid the Glitter and Doom of '70s New York
- By: Guy Trebay
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in the Bronx, Guy Trebay was raised in an atmosphere of privilege on Long Island’s North Shore after his entrepreneurial father struck business gold with Hawaiian Surf, a wildly successful cologne company that capitalized on the optimism of the 1960s as marketed to “an adventurous new breed of men.’’ But behind the facade of material prosperity lay the emotional disarray of a household dominated by a charismatic, con artist father, a glamorous yet lost and careless mother, a family haunted by tragedy.
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Heartache and heartbreak and the will to survive.
- By Polly B. on 07-05-24
By: Guy Trebay
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You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger
- By: Roger Hall
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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With a sharp eye and wry wit, Roger Hall recounts his experiences as an American Army officer assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. In his droll storytelling style, Hall describes his first parachute jump in support of the French resistance as a comedy of errors that terminated prematurely. Called one of the funniest and most perceptive works ever written about life in the OSS, the book includes a wealth of unforgettable personalities that Hall encountered over the years.
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Clipped every chapter
- By Ammon K. on 01-05-25
By: Roger Hall
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Memento Mori
- The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life
- By: Joanna Ebenstein
- Narrated by: Joanna Ebenstein
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Talking about death has been deemed morbid, taboo, or even pathological. But in order to fully embrace life, scientists, psychologists, and spiritual leaders all agree—contemplating death is the key to living a life with meaning. This life-changing book will give you a 12-week program to befriend death in your own way, creating your own personal, daily meditation on what it means to be mortal.
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Enlightening and transformative.
- By Anonymous User on 01-24-25
By: Joanna Ebenstein
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Superficial
- More Adventures from the Andy Cohen Diaries
- By: Andy Cohen
- Narrated by: Andy Cohen
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Hopping from the Hamptons to the Manhattan dating world, the dog park to the red carpet, Cardinals superfan and mama's boy Andy Cohen, with Wacha in tow, is the kind of star fans are dying to be friends with. This book gives them that chance. If The Andy Cohen Diaries was deemed "the literary equivalent of a Fresca and tequila" by Jimmy Fallon, Superficial is a double: dishier, juicier, and friskier. In this account of his escapades, Andy tells us not only what goes down but exactly what he thinks.
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Wanted to love it...but
- By Jaci on 11-19-16
By: Andy Cohen
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Split Decision
- Life Stories
- By: Ice-T, Spike, Douglas Century
- Narrated by: Ice-T, Spike, Douglas Century
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Ice-T rose to fame in the late 1980s, earning acclaim for his music before going on to enthrall television audiences as Odafin “Fin” Tutuola in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. But it could have gone much differently. In this “poignant and powerful” (Library Journal, starred review) memoir, Ice-T and Spike, his former crime partner—collaborating with New York Times bestselling author Douglas Century—relate the shocking stories of their shared pasts, and how just a handful of decisions led to their incredibly different lives.
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An awesome book
- By Cornelius DeMarcus on 11-30-22
By: Ice-T, and others
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Confessions
- A Life of Failed Promises
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: A. N. Wilson
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A. N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love (sacred and profane) and his life in Grub Street—as a prolific writer. The audiobook begins with his heart-torn present-day visits to Katherine, now for decades his ex-wife, who has slithered into the torments of dementia. At every turn of this reminiscence, Wilson is baffled by his earlier self—whether he is flirting with unsuitable lovers or with the idea of the priesthood.
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Atomic bomb and other gems
- By Charles on 11-27-23
By: A. N. Wilson
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We All Shine On
- John, Yoko, and Me
- By: Elliot Mintz
- Narrated by: Elliot Mintz
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1972, Elliot Mintz installed a red light in his bedroom in Laurel Canyon. When it started flashing, it meant that either John Lennon or Yoko Ono—or sometimes both—were calling him. Which they did almost every day for nearly ten years, engaging Mintz in hours-long late-night phone conversations that all but consumed him for the better part of a decade. In We All Shine On, Mintz—a former radio and television host in Los Angeles—recounts the story of how their unlikely friendship began and where it led him over the years.
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Give it an hour and you will be hooked.
- By Christianna on 11-21-24
By: Elliot Mintz
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Lust & Wonder
- A Memoir
- By: Augusten Burroughs
- Narrated by: Augusten Burroughs
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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From the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling author comes an intimate look at the driving forces in one man’s life. With Augusten's unique and singular observations and his own unabashed way of detailing both the horrific and the humorous, Lust and Wonder is a hilariously frank audiobook memoir that his legions of fans have been waiting for. His story began in Running with Scissors, endured through Dry, and continues with this memoir, the capstone to the life of Augusten Burroughs.
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Relentlessly Tedious
- By River Holmes-miller on 03-31-16
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Act One
- An Autobiography
- By: Moss Hart
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 17 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Moss Hart's Act One, which Lincoln Center Theater presented in 2014 as a play written and directed by James Lapine, is one of the greatest American memoirs - a glorious memorial to a bygone age filled with all the wonder, drama, and heartbreak that surrounded Broadway in the early 20th century.
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Good but not great
- By c on 07-08-17
By: Moss Hart
What listeners say about Desperately Seeking Something
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tiffany Bartok
- 06-26-24
An Inspiring Listen
This is a book for every filmmaker- not just women filmmakers- and every dreamer who was called to do something- anything- more with their creativity.
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