People

By Guy D. Garcia

At 19 she raised eyebrows by propositioning Warren Beatty onscreen in Shampoo. At 21 she took her career cosmic by playing Princess Leia in Star Wars. Now Carrie Fisher, 30, is making waves again as a first-time novelist. Postcards from the Edge (Simon & Schuster; $15.95), due in bookstores next month, is a dark comedy about a troubled young actress named Suzanne Vale. Overwhelmed by money, men and success, Suzanne ends up in a drug- rehabilitation clinic feeling like "something on the bottom of someone's shoe, and not even someone interesting." Fisher, who is the daughter of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, has recently disclosed her own struggle with prescription barbiturates. Suzanne, admits the author, is a "character that's fairly close to me -- an actress living in California with strong tendencies to be obsessive." In fact, Carrie still blames herself for the fact that her father left the family when she was two years old. "I'm still reeling from it," says Fisher. "It makes an impression on you." Still, any references to Dad are conspicuously missing from the self-avowed roman a clef. "My route to intimacy is routine," writes Fisher's fictional protagonist. "I establish a pattern with somebody, and then I notice when they're not there." Looks like this is one case where absence did not make the heart grow fonder.

With reporting by David E. Thigpen/New York