Lena Dunham's Million-Dollar Advice
Lena Dunham, the over-sharing darling of television and media, is shopping a book proposal "set to go for a minimum $1 million," according to Page Six. David Haglund at Slate's Brow Beat reveals that the book will not simply be a collection of essays, but in fact an advice book, or at least a counterintuitive of-the-moment kind of Lena Dunham-esque advice book:
What’s most striking about the proposal is that the essays are collectively presented as an advice book: the (presumably tentative) title is Not That Kind of Girl: Advice by Lena Dunham. In the intro, Dunham is self-deprecating about the idea that she has any wisdom to share, but says that if the book can help anyone avoid some of the mistakes she’s made it will be worth it. She cites Helen Gurley Brown’s Having It All as a kind of inspiration, even though she thinks much of what Brown specifically advised is totally nuts.
According to a publishing source who talked to Page Six, the book is "said to be a modern take" on a different Helen Gurley Brown work, Sex and the Single Girl. Whatever Dunham comes up with, it will surely be held up not just to the work of Brown, though. Her final product will likely draw comparisons to Tina Fey's Bossypants, Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), and Caitlin Moran's How to Be a Woman.
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From the nuggets of information we do have about the book, we predict it will ignite some familiar discussions that tend to come up when talking about Dunham, as related to privilege, her age (just 26), and similarities and differences between her and the character she plays on Girls. But unlike aspiring author Hannah who needs to live in order to write, Dunham is already widely successful—so much so that she won't just be auctioning her book off to the highest bidder, per Page Six. Instead, "the top five bidders in this week’s auction will sit down with Lena on Friday for a meeting. She’ll then choose from those offers."
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Lesser people might be jealous, but do we really want to take our million-dollar advice from those who aren't successful? Hopefully it all goes down better with a dash of self-deprecation.
