(Image via Harper Design)
Picture it: Your living room, late at night, Grindr's buzzing but you're blissfully unaware. Why? Because you just got a book, a book so good they named it.
If you love The Golden Girls—and let's face it, if you don't, maybe you're on the wrong site?—you will love Golden Girls Forever: An Unauthorized Look Behind the Lanai (Harper Design, $35) by Jim Colucci, and you will absolutely never regret devoting many quiet evenings to committing it to memory.
Colucci authored the already indispensable The Q Guide to the Golden Girls (Alyson, 2006)—which was specifically targeted at fancy men everywhere—but has taken a more encyclopedic approach this time around, offering 368 pages filled with internal memos; stills; on-set personal candids; interviews with “the show's creators, actors, guest stars, producers, writers, and crew members”; and even a section of tributes from famous fans like Zachary Quinto and Laverne Cox.
Revisiting one of my top posts ever: #GoldenGirls https://t.co/67mNS3zacV pic.twitter.com/nLzU0wmBJU
— Boy Culture Blog (@mattrett) April 11, 2016
As the expert on the series, Colucci was able to interview Rue McClanahan and Bea Arthur in the years prior to their deaths, and also delivers a new Q&A with Betty White.
The book's greatest use is its inclusion of exhaustive summaries of every episode, which do a lot more than regurgitate IMDb factoids. Colucci offers original comments from the creatives on the making-of that serve as incredible oral histories, the likes of which few if any other TV series have ever received.
Golden Girls Forever also faithfully documents fan art and fan-appreciation events/plays, making it not just a memento of the series, but a breathlessly faithful chronicle of its impact on the greater culture.
On a more superficial level, the book is also beautifully designed, as pretty as Blanche's perky bosoms.
Take a lesson, Rose, Golden Girls Forever is how you tell a story.
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