Memoirs and Misinformation

A Novel

By: Jim Carrey, Dana Vachon

Narrated by: Jeff Daniels

Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's Summary

A New York Times Best Seller

"None of this is real and all of it is true." (Jim Carrey)

Meet Jim Carrey. Sure, he's an insanely successful and beloved movie star drowning in wealth and privilege - but he's also lonely. Maybe past his prime. Maybe even...getting fat? He's tried diets, gurus, and cuddling with his military-grade Israeli guard dogs, but nothing seems to lift the cloud of emptiness and ennui. Even the sage advice of his best friend, actor and dinosaur-skull collector Nicolas Cage, isn't enough to pull Carrey out of his slump. 

But then Jim meets Georgie: ruthless ingénue, love of his life. And with the help of auteur screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, he has a role to play in a boundary-pushing new picture that may help him uncover a whole new side to himself - finally, his Oscar vehicle! Things are looking up! 

But the universe has other plans. 

Memoirs and Misinformation is a fearless semi-autobiographical novel, a deconstruction of persona. In it, Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon have fashioned a story about acting, Hollywood, agents, celebrity, privilege, friendship, romance, addiction to relevance, fear of personal erasure, our "one big soul", Canada, and a cataclysmic ending of the world - apocalypses within and without.

©2020 Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic Reviews

“A mad fever dream... Carrey and his collaborator Vachon pull out all the stops as their protagonist Jim Carrey careens from midlife blues through love and career complications toward the apocalypse...gems of comic fantasy and the nuggets of memoir gold.” (Kirkus)

WHAT?!?

I like Jim Carrey. I think he's funny, creative, entertaining, and humorously animated. Lately, I've been seeing that he's had an epiphany that awakened him to a new way of seeing life and the universe. I had questions regarding what happened to give him that "ah ha" moment. When I heard he wrote a memoir, I preordered it, figuring it would give me answers. Nope! Nada! Not even close!

The book starts out very dark and psychotic, describing Carrey as an emotional mess with 2 highly-trained rottweilers who came at a price tag of $100,000 each that he uses for protection and companionship. It then talks about a movie role Carrey gets convinced to mentally and physically prepare for where he'd play Mau Tse Tung (deceased former Chairman of China's People's Republic). During that preparation process, he marries an actress who sees Carrey as her financial ticket in life. She encourages him to take on a sex partner who visited during a wild party on Carrey's estate. This concubine ends up leaving the estate on a stretcher after overdosing on drugs. Carrey gets a reality check and is convinced by handlers to drop the Mau preparation, stop having extramarital sex and take an acting part in Hungry, Hungry Hippos where he electronically meets an animated version of his deceased friend Rodney Dangerfield. As I'm reading about Carrey sliding deeper and deeper into psychosis and hedonism, I'm figuring at any moment one of these experiences is going to be the catalyst to turn his life around. Then the book takes a strange twist where sleeping Carrey wakes up to find his estate is on fire because of the California brush fires and just when he's about to die in the fire, he's rescued by Eco-Terrorists who are taking advantage of his fried security system and burnt watchdogs to kidnap him so they can get funding for their cause. They don't succeed because while taking Carrey to the safehouse aliens attack California and Sean Penn, Nicholas Cage, Gweneth Paltrow, and Kelsey Grammer join in to fight them. After a few chapters of the alien attack, the actors are dead and Jim is left floating in a half-inflated dingy borrowed from John Travolta. And that's where the book ends! My reaction was WHAT?!?

I'm seriously disappointed.

On the plus side though, Jeff Daniels does a stellar performance in reading it, and the actual writing is creatively picturesque. But as for answering my questions about his metamorphosis. It didn't.

Revealing at times, at times holding back

Full disclosure - I am a big Jim Carrey fan - and because of that I went in thinking I would really enjoy the book, just because I am very interested in how Jim has navigated his career and life. I knew some of his views on life and success through some of the interviews and YouTube clips he has done. I kind of expected a wild ride in some ways (it IS Jim Carrey, after all) but what I didn't really expect is such introspection on the Hollywood machine and it's relation to capitalism, and how that also plays out in our world today in various ways. Without spoiling the fun, there's a lot there for those that wish to see.

Jeff Daniel's voice does a great job, although I would have loved it if Jim himself had read the audiobook. There were a couple of times where I felt the story dragged a bit, but overall it was a real "page turner" for me. Did Jim Carrey reveal all? No. Does it feel honest? Yes, I think so. Did I come away feeling like I understand the life of one of the most recognizable people on the planet? In some ways, yes, I definitely have a better understanding of some of the things that I think have dogged and challenged him in his personal journey. Some of his thoughts are in code, honestly. It's probably going to take a while to unpack it all. I will be reading it again.

I hate listened to this.

After hearing Howard Stern rave about this book and interview Jim Carrey this past week I figured I would use a credit to get it and was thoroughly disappointed. It was a 100% hate listen. Like a fever dream, it was just a long rambling mess. Was it a failed screenplay? It seems like it. I kept hoping it would get better and it didn't it was the same from beginning to end. I guess I expected more. The only good thing that came out of it was 2 and 1/4 listening speed.

The audible version of taking an edible.

I felt this book. I made many disturbing faces and snickered often while listening to the book straight through. It was intoxicating brilliant- yet not a book that will please many of the people I know, only my favorite people.

I wanted to like it.

Every few minutes I would ask myself WTH am I reading?!? I had hoped for more of Jim Carrey but that was not the goal of this book. Or was it?!?

Beautiful, Ridiculous, Deep and Wonderful. Wow!

Deep and amazing. I loved this audiobook and will listen to it again. There is so much going on that it's like that movie you want to see again and again because you know there are layers you can only see if you watch it a few times. Jeff Daniels was perfection. Best audiobook I've listened to in years.

Should Be Required Reading for K-3rd Graders in US

Setting all hyperbole aside, this is quite possibly the single greatest memoir ever written.

All the rumors you hear about this only being 80-90% true are complete hogwash. Believe me, this book is 100% factually accurate. ALL this stuff actually happened. And thank God Jim kept meticulous notes, journals, and camcorder cassettes in order to bring all the action to life!

Some of the greatest memoirs of all time - Churchill, Clinton, OJ Simpson - can't hold a candle to the story Jim weaves here. He's mentally firing on all cylinders and cognitively at the tippy-tip-top of his game. The man is unstoppable. He's like Paula Abdul in the eighties.

His writing style is something to be cherished and gushed over. College courses will one day be taught about how he wrote this book. It's as if the corpse of Hunter S. Thompson somehow procreated with Ernest Hemingway, while Carrot Top was standing over them and drooling.

It really is that incredible.

This is the ultimate Hollywood tell-all, and I can only hope and pray that it gets the accolades and praise it so richly deserves.

The only downside is having Jeff Daniels read it. While Jeff's a very fine bedtime story reader, I can't help but think of how much more entertaining this audiobook would've been with a REAL voice actor that actually could do passable impressions of Nic Cage, Anthony Hopkins, Gwyneth Paltrow, and others. This could easily have been the single greatest audiobook of all time, had the producers decided to take this painfully obvious route. I mean, in all seriousness, even Jim himself could've done an exponentially better job reading the book aloud. As it stands, we're left with a tired, uninterested grandpa reading the book aloud to us, wondering what could've been.

Pure junk

you will return it or not finish it. absolutely worst book I ever tried to read or listen to
Pure junk
Worst narration

It HURT my ears the writing was so horrible

Hoped for your enlightenment Jim

I’ve followed your path to enlightenment with awe and waited eagerly for this book. As it was more of a Hollywood story, sigh, I was greatly disappointed. Loved the writing style and adventure though. Your awakening is most fascinating for me. I hope you will share more of that please. Know you are deeply loved

Weird.....

And not in a good or entertaining way. What happened to this wonderfully funny man? Some folks just cant "do" fame. He vers off into some odd places i cant describe....I think this was a horrible example of what his story could be.

Confusing

I was looking forward to this. I didn’t really know what to expect. It doesn’t really build on any characters and makes little sense (to me) most of the way through.
I recall any tension comedy or drama. I think it’s supposed to be deeply though provoking.

This is my first review. Only because I feel like I’ve wasted 5 hours on this. Sorry Jimbo.

Insightful, poetic, hysterical and quotable.

what a perfect tome of madness and satire. loved everything about it. Well done the authors and well done Mr Daniels by playing it straight.

memorable not misinformed

A shape shifting narrative, at once Carey's musings, at once sci-fi metaphors. an uissable voyage.

Uninhibited megalomania

I loved this from start to finish, even though it stirred up emotions from within did not realise I was capable of feeling. I want it all to be real. I also want to be the only one to read it, although I realise keeping this from the rest of humanity would be a travesty.

Lost and never found my way back.

I liked Jeff Daniels reading it. I liked how Jim and Dana painted some of the scenes and crafted the emotions and metaphors.

But heading into chapter 1 I was hoping I’d be on firm ground, being lead through and absorbed by the story. Instead I found myself constantly confused by who was saying what or where people were.

I really wanted to like this but it didn’t land. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe Jim is too brilliant for me to understand. But I doubt it.

what is truth

love it laughter out loud is the street and cried needs to be a cartoon

Forever Flourishing and Falling Through Time

What I write here in this moment barely exists in where I'll be when we meet and we return to these paths we've once walked and continue on. The lessons are boundless and my legs are tired. Until we walk again.

All the best,
Biddle

Loved it, an amazing combination of life/words

love this book and hope he writes mlrw, honestly great stuff, thank you, thank you!!!!

Unusual, not what I expected

I don't read books.
This was my first audible book. I enjoyed the experience/journey. This book starts out like a memoir as the title states but then it looses meaning and purpose towards the end. Maybe this is deliberate as life can be viewed in the same way. I like Jim Carrey " A LOT!" This helped me enjoy the book more otherwise I don't think I'd care about it as much. I also like Jeff Daniels but I'm not sure he is the best choice for a narrator of an audio book. It was a good effort but not great.

Enjoyable but...

confusing! enjoyed the stories and the goings on but half the time I did not know what the hell was going on nevermind what was real or unreal! Maybe that is the point!!