My Cousin Maria Schneider: A Memoir

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 [she] 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.)