Confessions of a Celebrity Mom: Brooke Shields's Down Came the Rain: My Journey through Postpartum Depression

Abstract

In “Confessions of a Celebrity Mom: Brooke Shields's Down Came the Rain,” I look at Brooke Shields's recent memoir of postpartum depression as exemplifying the mythic thinking that, according to Anne Hunsaker Hawkins, characterizes autopathography as a genre. In particular, I examine the rhetorical strategies and appeals by which, in the context of her celebrity, Shields defends herself against the shame and stigma attached to postpartum depression in a culture that both idealizes and devalues motherhood. The memoir is an honest yet canny disclosure of intimate moments of depression, shame, and suicidal thinking: in it, the author both exposes herself to the public eye (and attacks by Tom Cruise) and, drawing on the allure of her celebrity, veils herself and her privileged life from any real scrutiny.