Lena Dunham sparks controversy in memoir

Indie teen fangirls and grown women alike rejoiced at the release of critically acclaimed, millennial actress/screenwriter/producer Lena Dunham’s first book, Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned.” The memoir — which has held second place on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list for four consecutive weeks now — has been the topic of recent discussion due to sudden criticism.

Back in October 2012, the memoir initially generated buzz as it was revealed that the then-26-year old Dunham had signed a book deal for over $3.5 million. Since its release on Sept. 30, Not That Kind of Girl has received accolades from notable writers and critics, earning the praise of revered New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani.

Dunham first rose to fame in 2010 with the release of Tiny Furniture, an indie comedy-drama that she directed, wrote and starred in. The film quickly gained acclaim, winning Best Narrative Feature at the South by Southwest Film Festival. In Tiny Furniture, Dunham clearly lays out the foundations for her hit 2012 HBO television series, Girls, as both revolve around issues of post-graduate women grappling with life, love and the job market in contemporary New York.

As with Girls and Tiny Furniture, Not That Kind of Girl explores multiple facets of Dunham’s life. The book is divided into sections titled “Love & Sex,” “Body,” “Friendship,” “Work” and “Big Picture.” Each section contains a series of personal anecdotes that range from “Platonic Bed Sharing” to “My Regrets.” The book’s format is inspired by former Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown’s 1982 self-help title Having It All: Love Success, Sex, Money Even If You’re Starting With Nothing.

In her introduction, Dunham describes how she purchased the book at a thrift store for 65 cents at the age of 20, and while she found its advice laughable, she admired the way Brown remained open with her audience.

“[Brown] shares her own embarrassing, acne-ridden history in an attempt to say, ‘Look, happiness and satisfaction can happen to anyone,’” Dunham writes.

With Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham attempts to create a modern day equivalent by recounting her own experiences. Whether embarrassing, poignant, funny or alarming, Dunham states the helpful intentions of her memoir:

“[I]f I could take what I’ve learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine was worthwhile,” Dunham writes.

Dunham’s novel is painfully honest and highlights her characteristic unfiltered sharing, which is also prevalent in Girls. The author leaves little to the reader’s imagination: She details the loss of her virginity, various awkward sexcapades (one of which involves a condom that lands on a nearby house plant), the contents of her purse, her experiences in therapy and a string of situations to which she has responded by vomiting.

Dunham’s life chronicles are particularly fruitful for Girls fans, as individuals and anecdotes from her memoir draw clear parallels to characters and scenes on her show, allowing for readers to gain a deeper perspective on her upbringing and its influence on her work.

While Girls has been criticized for its depiction of a primarily white, privileged subset of America’s current twenty-somethings, it’s obvious that Dunham, like most writers, simply writes what she knows. While Girls could undoubtedly benefit from the inclusion of racially and socioeconomically diverse viewpoints, Not That Kind of Girl shows that Dunham’s own upbringing was a wealthy one, complete with a private single-sex education, a Connecticut lake house, psychic consultations and a multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartment to call home.

Nevertheless, Dunham is aware of that her upbringing is by no means the “norm,” and she directly addresses disparity.

“I had a lucky girlhood,” Dunham writes. “It wasn’t always easy to live inside my brain, but I had a family that loved me, and we didn’t have to worry about much except what gallery to go to on Sunday and whether or not my child psychologist was helping with my sleep issues.”

She is not only able to address the matter at hand but also does so in a way that pokes fun at her “pretentious” Manhattan youth.

Despite Dunham’s limited perspective, Not That Kind of Girl includes moments that can resonate with all women regardless of age, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic background. The author chronicles painful first crushes, horrible ex-boyfriends, falling in love, struggles with her body image and confusion about her own anatomy (one chapter is titled “Who Moved My Uterus?”). 

Not That Kind of Girl reads like a late night slumber-party conversation, a drunken confessional or a diary. This style is augmented by the author’s penchant for lists (such as “18 Unlikely Things I’ve Said Flirtatiously,” which includes “I’m obsessed with the curtains in your van!”) and illustrator Joana Avillez’s playful doodles that decorate the passages throughout.

While the book’s organization is successful, the penultimate and final sections — “Work” and “Big Picture” — fall a bit flat in comparison to previous chapters, relying heavily on long-form and hypothetical anecdotes. Contrary to assumptions, “Work” only has one short chapter dedicated to Dunham’s current job. Instead, this chapter focuses on her distaste for academic settings and the luxury children’s clothing store she worked at for nine months after graduation.

“Big Picture” feels sloppier than previous chapters, as if Dunham has compiled all of the stories that did not quite fit elsewhere into one messy laundry pile with a vague, clichéd title. While “Therapy & Me” paints a compelling and thoughtful portrait of the author’s struggle with mental health treatment, chapters on her irrational “Top 10 Health Concerns” and summers spent at Fernwood Cove Camp are insignificant and vacuous in comparison.

Not That Kind of Girl has recently come under fire due to a controversy sparked by conservative publication National Review’s critique of Dunham’s book, in which writer Kevin D. Williams accuses the author of sexually abusing her sister.

Williams quotes a passage from the book where Dunham recounts a childhood story where she at the age of seven looks inside of her younger sister Grace’s vagina and is surprised to find that Grace has inserted pebbles inside of herself. Williams claims that this action is “the sort of thing that gets children taken away from non-millionaire families without Andover pedigrees and Manhattanite social connections.”

Williams’s article, titled “Pathetic Privilege,” also attacks Dunham’s wealthy upbringing that “did not sate her sundry hungers” and writes, “If there is such a thing as actually abusing a child through excessive generosity and overindulgence, then Lena Dunham’s parents are child abusers.”

Dunham responded to these allegations by composing a bevy of tweets:

“The right wing news story that I molested my little sister isn’t just LOL — it’s really [f*cking] upsetting and disgusting.”

“And by the way, if you were a little kid and never looked at another little kid’s vagina well, congrats to you.”

“Usually this is stuff I can ignore but don’t demean sufferers, don’t twist my words, back the [f*ck] up bros.”

“I told a story about being a weird 7 year old. I bet you have some too, old men, that I’d rather not hear. And yes, this is a rage spiral,” and finally, “Sometimes I get so mad I burn right up. Also I wish my sister wasn’t laughing so hard,” Dunham wrote.

Although each is entitled to his or her own option, Williams’s claims — not only of Dunham’s sexual abuse but also regarding the author’s upbringing and her parents’ childrearing — appear to be inflated and captious, trivializing the experiences of true victims of sexual assault.

Whether readers view Dunham’s childhood act as sexual abuse or find Williams’s use of the phrase to be a flagrant misunderstanding of the author’s childhood experiences, it is up to them to make this judgment for themselves after reading the entirety of Not That Kind of Girl.

Nonetheless, Dunham proves she has lived a life well-observed and worth reading about, a true depiction of our times and the experiences of one woman who has survived the inevitable failure, heartache and emotional battles that accompany them.