Review: Here’s The Story by Maureen McCormick

Title: Here’s The Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice

Author: Maureen McCormick

Genre: Personal Memoir; 274 pages

Released: 2008

Rating: 1.5 Bookmarks

 

Like many kids, I grew up watching The Brady Bunch (in reruns) and admit to having a crush on Peter.  I wasn’t very keen on Marsha; I preferred the middle sister, Jan, because she seemed more personable.

When I spotted this book at my library, I snatched it up, immediately flipping to the photographs.  On a whim, I borrowed it and hoped for an entertaining and dishy read.

I was disappointed on both counts.  I found myself wanting to take a red pen to the book to excise whole pages (and chapters) where the book dragged and Maureen McCormick waxed poetic on snorting whole bags of cocaine, which left her strung out for days.  

Her writing was serviceable, but the story meanders so much that it’s as if she’s writing about living 500 years instead 50. 

McCormick aired lots of dirty laundry when it came to her family–her father’s infidelities, her mother’s hoarding tendencies and syphilis, one brother’s drug addiction and mental illness, another brother’s mental handicap.   

She wrote about working on the set of The Brady Bunch, her fling with Greg (Barry Williams), but mostly she complained about the “ghost” of Marcia Brady following her when she auditioned for other roles.

In 1985, McCormick’s drug use reached a fever-pitch and she began to cast about for help.  She began to pray to God for a sign of His existence.  

McCormick was walking with friends down Westwood Boulevard, “…when suddenly and without warning (McCormick) was thrown to the ground.  Literally thrown…a force pushed from behind…and two hands reaching down from the sky toward (McCormick’s).  It was Jesus.”

McCormick was so inspired by her epiphany that she became a Born Again Christian.  At church she met her future husband who helped her down the long road to come to know her true self.

The rest of the book details McCormick’s efforts to get clean, her religion, the birth of her daughter, Natalie, the death of her mother, and the renaissance of her celebrity thanks toVH1’s Celebrity Fit Club.

Overall, the book left me uninspired and sadly shaking my head, uttering those three words Maureen McCormick’s been running from since the early 70s: “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.”