One of the New York Times’ 20 Books to Read in 2020 “Unforgettable…Behind her brilliantly witty and uplifting message is a remarkable vulnerability and candor that reminds us that we are not alone in our struggles–and that we can, against all odds, get through them.” –Lori Gottlieb, New York Times-bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone Part memoir and part joyful romp … Someone
Part memoir and part joyful romp through the fields of imagination, the story behind a beloved pseudonymous Twitter account reveals how a writer deep in grief rebuilt a life worth living.
Becoming Duchess Goldblatt is two stories: that of the reclusive real-life writer who created a fictional character out of loneliness and thin air, and that of the magical Duchess Goldblatt herself, a bright light in the darkness of social media. Fans around the world are drawn to Her Grace’s voice, her wit, her life-affirming love for all humanity, and the fun and friendship of the community that’s sprung up around her.
@DuchessGoldblat (81 year-old literary icon, author of An Axe to Grind) brought people together in her name: in bookstores, museums, concerts, and coffee shops, and along the way, brought real friends home–foremost among them, Lyle Lovett.
“The only way to be reliably sure that the hero gets the girl at the end of the story is to be both the hero and the girl yourself.” — Duchess Goldblatt
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BECOMING DUCHESS GOLDBLATT is a quiet, intimate story of a broken person in a broken world, pulling a slender purple thread out of the ragged fabric of her life and using it to weave a glorious tapestry.
While I was finishing my revision, I decided I wouldn’t allow myself to read in order to stay completely focused on the story. Yeah, that wasn’t a great plan. I languished without a book. So I amended it to I wasn’t allowed to read fiction. And maybe that was just an excuse to buy BECOMING DUCHESS GOLDBLATT. Duchess’s book surprised me on many levels. It was sad. It was joyous. It was funny as hell. I was moved, and I am willing to bet you will be, too. Thank you to Blake Leyers for introducing me to Duchess’s Twitter feed way back when. What a culmination. What a beginning.
The book, like the character I follow on Twitter, was uplifting and witty and a quick, feel good read. Perfect pandemic reading and some good life lessons
Whether or not you’ve ever interacted with “Duchess Goldblatt” on Twitter, this memoir is a warm, smart, inspiring read about a writer in crisis who remade her relationship with the world by inhabiting the fictional persona of an elderly lady who loves herself and everyone else, ultimately rediscovering her creativity and, not incidentally, becoming friends with Lyle Lovett. Must-read.
After reading this unforgettable memoir, I figured out who Duchess Goldblatt is: all of us. Behind her brilliantly witty and uplifting message is a remarkable vulnerability and candor that reminds us that we are not alone in our struggles — and that we can, against all odds, get through them. As though casting a magic spell on her readers, she moves, inspires, and connects us through her unvarnished humanity. It was, for this therapist, a form of therapy I didn’t know I needed.
This book is, like Duchess Goldblatt herself, nothing you expect and everything you need. It’s a memoir not just of one life (failures and triumphs laid bare) but also of a second self — its creation, its evolution, its improbable splendor. We may never deserve Duchess Goldblatt and her magnanimity, but her inventor most certainly does.
I just loved this book. Duchess really touched me.
I absolutely and completely loved this book! And wrote a review on Amazon for it! Don’t wait by it today!
What an unexpected marvel of a book, funny and poignant and — dare I say — sweet. It’s fashionable to bash social media, but without it, we wouldn’t have Duchess and that would be a damn shame.
The question I am most often asked by readers out in the world, is, ‘Who is Duchess Goldblatt?’ The correct answer is, ‘She is the Universe’s secret admirer, a made-up & hilarious octogenarian who lives on Twitter, who delivers love and demands it in equal, astonishing measure.’ What they mean is: what’s her real identity? This book does not precisely reveal that. Instead it’s the actual memoir of a fictional person, a meditation on what it means to start again in the oddest way possible. It is also heartbreaking, funny, gorgeously written, surprising, brilliant, profound, the book only Duchess Goldblatt herself could have written.
A memoir that is, ironically, about the power a fiction can exert on us all, she tells us a story about late Capitalism, social media, the financial crisis, and America, and being a woman trying to survive it all. Whatever someone expects this to be, it isn’t, and that is, perhaps, the real secret to the Duchess underneath it all.
I have been waiting and waiting for this book. Duchess Goldblatt is the GOAT. She’s as funny and wise and vulnerable and honest as the maiden auntie we all wish we had!