(4 of 4)
She is at the center of a circle of bright, successful friends -- a post- Beatles hipster Algonquin Table that cellularly convenes to muse and amuse. She survives the mottled curse of fame by fostering deep, intimate friendships. Her coterie ranges from her ex's 18-year-old son to a 71-year-old psychiatrist and includes director Penny Marshall, comic philosopher Albert Brooks, actor Richard Dreyfuss, musicians Don Henley and J.D. Souther, and many more.
For her side, Fisher is still always stalking and recording the wild anecdote:
I once went to South America and took a drug there called ayahuasco. I was actually there with my ex-husband. He had laid down his head on my lap, and I put my hand on his forehead and it felt like it was pulsing and growing and WARRRrrhh. Every once in a while they would shine a flashlight. Every time they did, bugs would scurry on the walls. And that was no hallucination. They brought this woman in who had to be carried in. And the shaman sang over her. La-la-la-la-la-la-la. Jamorino heh-heh-heh. The Indian thing, right. La-la-la- la-la-la-luh. It was a healing song -- though I am sure that the woman is no longer with us. Then the guy explained to us that we might see snakes -- the anacondas -- coming toward us. That was fantastic. I went to South America a bunch of times. But no snakes ever came. So I didn't get anything from it, but I like those drugs.
Fisher comes by her boldness genetically. Her grandmother is a marvelously blunt character who, after seeing the movie of Postcards, said loudly, "I don't know how they made such a great movie out of such a lousy book." And her legendary mother is feisty, circumspect, keen and nurturing. "It is always an interesting fight," says Fisher, "for the remaining chair in the musical chairs of who is going to get the focus in the room. But she always gets the chair because she is the mother." Fisher tilts toward her grandmother's wise grandeur and is currently at work on her third novel called -- what else? -- Delusions of Grandma.
Even before her current burst of renown, Fisher had become a sought-after scriptwriter. Film rights to Surrender have been sold to Paramount with Steven Spielberg producing and Fisher supplying the dialogue. She's also finishing a film script called Christmas in Las Vegas, a recast, modern Hansel and Gretel tale based on one of her short stories.
Through the therapy of writing about her woes and heartache, Fisher is finding perhaps not happiness but at least satisfaction, day by day. And she is in love. His name is Bryan Lourd. He is a talent agent and four years younger than she. She'd like to have a baby. She lives in a colorful, comfortable cabin in Beverly Hills that is filled with knickknacks like miniature cities in bottles, cutouts of the Seven Dwarfs and a large cow decoy. Jack Nicholson's comment upon visiting the abode was: "Just exactly how old are the children?" While she sorts that out, she'd still like a good gander at a giant anaconda.