In her memoir, it’s not necessarily not the truth (William Morrow, 2009), Jaime Pressly says she started telling her unborn son Dezi James stories about her family. She had written parts of the stories years before and had put them in a box in her attic. She had left them unfinished, but knew they would find their own path. Those stories are what inspired her to write this book, stories that she wanted passed down to her son.
Her memoir isn’t so much about her success as a model and an actress as it is about what she had to do to become those things. How she had to leave Kinston, NC, where she had been born and raised, and move to California to follow her dreams. How she had to convince her mother to move her to California as it was the only way she could follow those dreams. How she had to give up her extended family in Kinston, give up her best friends, give up what was comfortable to pursue the untested and unknown. How she had to become legally emancipated from her parents to follow that dream to Japan to model. How she had to go through the tug-of-war between her mother and father when they divorced.
She shares what her grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents and her older brother instilled in her to keep after her dreams. When her mother remarries and has another daughter, Pressly understands that now there is someone who she must be responsible to.
Pressly tells her story with humor, of course. She is quite articulate and intelligent, things that many people may not know about her. But, of course, to be a comedienne requires an understanding of not only what is funny, but how to get that funny across to an audience. She has succeeded in this very well as she won an Emmy in 2007 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for My Name is Earl. Pressly also designs a line of clothing.
To request a galley copy of Pressley’s book, contact Tavia Kowalchuk at Tavia.Kowalchuk@HARPERCOLLINS.com.
Galley Call by Reeden Wright
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