Karen Carpenter book is pop culture classic

Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter stood out on the shelf of Book Soup and seemed like a good summer read. The details of the Seventies star's death scene seemed promising enough, but we admit we expected the book to be a camp clip job hagiography written by a fan.

As it turns out, Little Girl Blue is finely-written, exhaustively-researched and nothing less than a classic rock bio penned by a music teacher who's dedicated decades to the subject and wrung from it a revelatory tragic saga As far as we know, this is the first clear representation of the baleful star's life, no longer clouded by family censorship and shading, painting a vivid portrait of the family dynamics that fed Karen's anorexia, and compiling other juicy details like the fact that Karen had a "microphone voice"-- powerful on records but so soft that it could hardly be heard across a room, and revealing that the smarmy incest rumours about brother and sister were trumped by the fact that, after treatment for his Quaalude addiction, brother Richard Carpenter married his first cousin.

Randy L. Schmidt's music credentials come into play with a fascinating overview of their creative and recording process and the Carpenters' place in the music, cultural and political scenes of the Seventies. This book could get the Carpenters into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Is Brittany Murphy our Karen Carpenter?

Interesting that the Los Angeles County Coroner immediately dismissed drugs as a factor in the death of tragic actress Brittany Murphy-- despite the large quantities of prescription medication found in the home where she died and the perception around town that she had substance issues. And whether the coroner's statement is Danny Gans-style parsing or a legally shrewd move, it has combined with true shock among many people who remember Brittany from her brighter days to lead to hopeful speculation that Brittany died not from excess but as a result of anorexia. Hopeful, because if that were to be the case, Brittany would not be another wasted talent, but a victim of society's cruel expectations, our culture's twisted demands, and the resulting distorted body image among many women and girls. She would be a feminist icon. She would be this generation's Karen Carpenter. She would have died for our sins. At least for the next six weeks until the toxicology results come through.