Carrie jokes that George Lucas ruined her life 43 years ago when he cast her in Star Wars. She claims everyone involved in the film knew it would be a huge success except Lucas. During the famous trash compactor scene in the first Star Wars film, Mark Hamill sang parody songs about the Dianoga creature between takes. He also burst a blood vessel in his eye, forcing him to grin excessively in the next day’s medal ceremony scene to hide the red spot.

Fisher grimaces every time she fires a blaster during a scene, so Lucas sends her to Robert De Niro’s Taxi Driver shooting instructor to practice with the firearms used in Star Wars. She remembers being told to lose 10 pounds from her 105-pound frame before they started filming, and jokes that the iconic bun hairstyle made her face look even wider. She notes that Amy Irving, Jodie Foster, and Teri Nunn were considered for Leia, and Christopher Walken nearly played Han Solo. Lucas prohibits her from wearing a bra under Princess Leia’s white dress, explaining, “there’s no underwear in space” (87), so she wears gaffer’s tape for support instead.

Fisher calls Lucas a sadist but acknowledges his visionary genius. She lists the various kinds of merchandise that bear her likeness, including dolls, shampoo bottles, soap, a watch, Mr. Potato Head (as “Princess Tater”), LEGO figures, a PEZ dispenser, and a postage stamp. She jokes that because Lucas owns her likeness, she must pay him whenever she looks in a mirror.

Fisher describes meeting Paul Simon as encountering someone from her own tribe with a shared sensibility. Her mother notes Simon can be “very charming—when he wants to be,” while her father wants Simon to write him an album. Fisher and Simon were together for six years, married for two, divorced for one year, then dated again. She adapts Samuel Johnson’s observation that remarrying is “the triumph of hope over experience,” calling remarrying the same person “the triumph of nostalgia over judgment” (94).

Fisher and Simon’s last trip together is to the Amazon. Afterward, Simon writes The Rhythm of the Saints, which includes “She Moves On,” the last song written about Fisher. Carrie quotes lyrics from multiple Simon songs, framing them as her alimony since she took none from their divorce. She describes herself as “Good Anecdote, Bad Reality” for Simon—good material for his art, but difficult in day-to-day life. On their honeymoon, during a fight, she tells him, “Not only do I not like you, I don’t like you personally!” (96). After their divorce, Fisher enters rehab, which she jokingly claims is for research for her novel Postcards from the Edge (1987).

Carrie identifies herself as having drug addiction but argues her addiction is not caused by her childhood, noting her brother Todd experienced the same upbringing without developing substance abuse issues. At 28, Carrie gives an interview to Esquire magazine. A publishing house sees the interview and sends her a letter while she is in rehab, offering her a book deal. She writes Postcards from the Edge in Los Angeles, then reunites with Paul Simon and writes the screenplay for the film adaptation in New York. When the film, starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine, begins production, her constant travel between coasts strains her relationship with Simon. Director Mike Nichols describes their marriage as “two flowers, no gardener. No one was minding the relationship” (100).

Bob Dylan calls seeking name suggestions for a cologne he’s developing. Fisher proposes Ambivalence, Arbitrary, and Empathy, and quips that he should open a beauty salon called “Tangled Up and Blown” (101). George Harrison later explains that Dylan fantasizes about regular jobs while touring, and recently proposed he and Harrison open The Traveling Wilburys Hotel. Fisher invites Dylan to a party, where he arrives in a parka and sunglasses and meets Meryl Streep, holding her hand while guessing her filmography.

Fisher’s mother is more upset about her failure to do a nightclub act and her dating an agent than she is about her drug use. Despite this initial disapproval, Lourd is eventually forgiven after  Fisher gives birth to their daughter, Billie. Fisher distinguishes between problems (which derail life) and inconveniences. Her “three and a half problems” are: a dead person in her bed, substance abuse, manic depression, and Billie’s father leaving her for a man named Scott. She attends a weekly three-hour Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for 10 years, learning she does not have to like activities to do them.

Fisher’s first crush, Willie Breton, is now an Orthodox rabbi in Israel. On her Jerusalem honeymoon with Simon, they lunch with Willie, during which Willie and Simon argue constantly. When Simon and Fisher split up, he married a much younger woman, Edie Brickell, while Fisher began dating Lourd, who later joked that her codeine use “turned him gay” (109). Carrie jokes that turning people gay is her superpower and that she may have inadvertently started queer communities all over the world through her codeine-fueled travels.