Publishers Weekly
02/27/2023
Novelist and journalist Schneider (Do Not Go Crazy) pays tribute to her cousin, late French actor Maria Schneider, in this poignant memoir. Before Maria died of cancer at 58, she concluded she’d “had a happy life,” dumbfounding her cousin, who witnessed her immense troubles firsthand. For much of this slim volume, Schneider recounts that pain: as a young child, she walked in on Maria shooting heroin, and characterizes Maria’s upbringing as “a child who grew up invisible to the very people whose affection needed most.” She also reflects on Maria’s infamous sex scene opposite Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris, which came to be widely viewed as “cinematic rape.” (Referring to director Bernardo Bertolucci’s defense of the controversial sequence, Schneider writes, “To him, you were merely collateral damage.”) There’s brightness, though, too, as when Schneider recounts Maria’s stints as a muse for artists including photographer Nan Goldin, singer Patti Smith, and fellow actor Brigitte Bardot, who paid for Maria’s funeral. Schneider writes dispassionately though not without affection, providing a blunt perspective on her complicated relationship with her cousin, a woman haunted by addiction and exploitation who sipped champagne until the end. The result is a bittersweet and gritty salute to a misunderstood screen legend. Agent: Heidi Warneke, Grasset. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Elegantly translated from the French by Molly Ringwald, My Cousin Maria Schneider is both a beautiful eulogy and a much-needed corrective — an opportunity to finally set the record straight... a generous account of a rare and complicated cinematic star.”—Thessaly La Force, The New York Times
"“The new memoir My Cousin Maria Schneider, by Vanessa Schneider, Maria’s 17-year-younger relative and a veteran journalist for Le Monde, tells a nuanced tale of what it was like to orbit Maria, a “precious, broken family jewel,' and is deftly translated from the French by Molly Ringwald, herself once a teenage acting sensation.”—Air Mail
“The book, written in the present tense, as if Vanessa is writing directly to her cousin, has a sad immediacy. Still, there are wonderful moments of enduring joy, connection and discovery.”—The Washington Post
"A terrific translation by fellow actress Ringwald makes this concise, harrowing book a powerful read."—Library Journal
"A touching tribute... Maria Schneider, with all her adventures and struggles, deserves to be better remembered, and her cousin shows us why. This stunning tale of Maria Schneider and her battles is stark yet consistently loving—and unforgettable."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Translated by actress Ringwald, this is an intriguing addition to the growing body of literature reexamining women's agency through a post-#MeToo lens.”—Booklist
“With devastating power and great originality of style, this gorgeous memoir shows the film industry’s brutality toward young women and the ways in which shame can waft into a sensitive girl’s bedroom like a draft under a door. In Molly Ringwald’s luminous translation, Vanessa Schneider’s love letter to her famous actress cousin—and to her own 1970s French bohemian childhood—delivers the emotional impact of great fiction while also faithfully telling an important true-life story about misogyny in our time.”
—Ada Calhoun, author of Why We Can’t Sleep and Also a Poet
"Composed like a posthumous love letter to her cousin, Vanessa Schneider's memoir captures their sisterly bond with tenderness and grace. It is an exquisite portrait of a tragic heroine, whose story offers a heartrending example of the cruelty of powerful men”
—Violaine Huisman, author of The Book of Mother
"Bertolucci made Maria Schneider a star and ruined her life when he cast her in Last Tango in Paris (1972). At 19, she was an authentic sensation and the hottest thing on screen. She was also an exploitable sex object—Bertolucci and Brando, Maria’s co-star, never told her that Brando was going to shove butter between her legs—and the butt of a very dirty joke. Aided by translator Molly Ringwald (who understands better than most how perilous the film business can be for young actresses), Vanessa tells Maria’s story with empathy and indignation. By the end of the book, the reader understands what it’s like to live a life in which public and private, personality and persona violently clash, a life without a safety net."—Lili Anolik, author of Hollywood's Eve
"In this lovingly written memoir we read our way through the operatic coming of age story of Maria Schneider, the young French actor, who dives gracefully into the combat zone of the extremely competitive film industry, surfaces many times, and then loses sight of land in her own struggle with drugs. I had to know, had to read about Maria as told by her younger, adoring and devoted cousin, Vanessa."—Deborah Harry, author of Face It, co-founder and frontwoman of Blondie
"Misogyny haunts Vanessa Schneider’s gently disturbing memoir. As she grows up alongside her older movie star cousin, Maria Schneider, she grapples with a world that valorizes Maria’s onscreen rape by one of Hollywood’s greatest legends. Molly Ringwald’s translation from the French bears witness to an intimate and delicate reckoning. May all the girls we didn’t protect haunt us forever."—Writer Director Stewart Thorndike
International praise for My Cousin Maria Schneider
“Schneider breathes life back into Maria through this beautiful text—a story with its share of joys and monsters, where emotion is always just beneath the surface.”—Marie-France
“An elegy that never gushes... taut with restrained emotion.”—Livres Hebdo
“A devastating book.”—Vogue France
“As disturbing as it is moving, this book reminds us that Maria Schneider was also, beyond the legend, a woman full of life.”—Madame
“Vanessa Schneider’s writing rings strong and true.”—Challenges
“An incredibly moving love letter.”—Le Figaro
New York Times bestselling author Ada Calhoun
Delivers the emotional impact of great fiction while also faithfully telling an important true-life story about misogyny in our time.”
Library Journal
02/01/2023
The 1972 film Last Tango in Paris, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, has a contentious place in film history for its explicit rape scene. While films now often use intimacy coordinators to shoot scenes with sex, back then there was no such support. During the filming, lead actress Maria Schneider was 19. In this striking biography—written in present tense—the author, a journalist who is Schneider's cousin, details Maria's struggles before, during, and after filming Last Tango in Paris. The scene wasn't in the original script, and the actress learned of it only just before filming. She had no idea that since the scene was unscripted, she was entitled to refuse to do it. Bertolucci later apologized, but the damage was lasting. Maria struggled throughout her life to overcome her participation in the film. Depression and addiction followed, and she died in 2011 at age 58. Despite this, the author is adamant that her cousin was much more than that film; she fought hard much of her life to make the industry more respectful of women. VERDICT A terrific translation by fellow actress Ringwald makes this concise, harrowing book a powerful read.—Penelope J.M. Klein
June 2023 - AudioFile
There's anger in Molly Ringwald's voice as she narrates these accounts of Maria Schneider's memories of the movie LAST TANGO IN PARIS, in particular Schneider's notorious sex scene with Marlon Brando. Mostly, Ringwald's narration captures author Vanessa Schneider's writing, which sounds as though she's conversing with her late cousin. Vanessa's many recollections are brief--full of sadness at Maria's life, which included a heroin problem and treatment in a sanatorium. She also recalls Maria's joys, such as drawing with pastels. Ringwald does a great re-creation of the vague, seemingly offhand comments that Maria gave to a reporter's questions about the shocking movie scene. The audiobook is a loving tribune, even as it reveals the toll that the controversial film took on the actress's life. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-02-08
A touching tribute to an overlooked French actor.
Maria Schneider (1952-2011) was far more than the actor known for her explicit sex scenes with Marlon Brando in the controversial Last Tango in Paris, though few were interested in anything else. Her younger cousin, Vanessa, will change that with this powerful remembrance of their time together. Vanessa, a novelist, reporter, and commentator on French politics, writes this memoir like a love letter, addressing her famous cousin as “You,” recalling the stories about Maria that she witnessed or were told to her. Their stories were intertwined even before Vanessa was born, since it was her birth that forced Maria, then 16, to stop staying with Vanessa’s parents after her mother forced her to move out of their house. Though Vanessa initially worshipped her famous cousin and the often glamorous life she led at an early age, thanks to her father, French actor Daniel Gélin, she began to see how fame hurt Maria, especially after the release of Last Tango in Paris, for which she felt victimized by the film’s director, Bernardo Bertolucci. Vanessa chronicles this fascinating story in often affectionate yet unflinching language, a quality that carries through in Ringwald’s spare, poignant translation from French. “I often worry that you won’t approve of the story I’m telling, Maria,” Vanessa writes. “You won’t like that I’m speaking of the drugs, of your mother and father and brothers. So, I erase what I just wrote, and then I write it again, because talking about you without talking about the drugs, your mother, your father, or Tango would mean giving up talking about you at all.” Maria Schneider, with all her adventures and struggles, deserves to be better remembered, and her cousin shows us why.
This stunning tale of Maria Schneider and her battles is stark yet consistently loving—and unforgettable.
