Those crazy Beales! Little Edie and Big Edie return yet again in Grey Gardens (the book)

May 7, 4:31 PMPittsburgh Stage and Screen ExaminerAlan Petrucelli

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There’s nothing black or white about this one.

One of the strangest films ever made, the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens boasts a devoted following . . . call it a “Two Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest” thing.

Grey Gardens, the dilapidated East Hamptons mansion of Edith Bouvier "Big Edie“ Beale and Edith Bouvier "Little Edie" Beale, aunt and cousin to Jackie Onassis, is a classic of cinema vérité as it tracks the Beales' eccentric and sequestered lives---which consist mostly of doing nothing, but with a mesmerizing zest and volubility.

Little Edie's magical aphorisms ("Raccoons and cats become a little bit boring," she sighs toward the end of the film, "I mean for too long a time...") are gems of unwitting camp, and between her observations, her costumes, the incredibly bizarre mother-daughter tensions, the cats, raccoons and the beautiful ruins of Grey Gardens itself, "doing nothing" amounts to everything; indeed, it amounts to a tragicomedy of enormous emotional punch.

So much punch it was made into a Broadway musical with Mary Louise Wilson as Big Edie and Christine Ebersole as Little Edie. HBO recently aired their take on Grey Gardens with a movie that starred Drew Barrymore as Little Edie and Jessica Lange as Big Edie; this film will be released on DVD in July.

Here's a photo of the real Little Edie (below, left) and the real Drew as Little Edie. Whose the hag (above) with the black mesh skullcap? That's the real Big Edie! Thank God Jackie O is dead.

And now, Grey Gardens, the book.

This eclectic volume, published by Free News Projects, offers a myriad of collaged illustrations, photographs, film stills, production notes and other archival materials alongside transcripts of the Beale's own stories and conversations, edited from unreleased Grey Gardens sound recordings. Structured to mirror the Maysles' own approach to the world of the Beales, it closely resembles the enchanting clutter of the mansion---a self-contained world littered with mementos and telling ephemera.
 
The tome also reproduces unpublished photographs by documentary filmmakers Albert Maysles and David Maysles. With an introduction by Albert, drawings and illustrations by Albert's daughter, Rebekah Maysles, and an appendix with the full transcripts of both Grey Gardens and 2006's The Beales of Grey Gardens, as well as an audio CD of sound recordings capturing the Beales at their best, this book is the essential companion to the film and a beautiful testimony to its legacy.

As a gift just for you, dear readers, we are offering a preview of the book. See what Little Edie and Big Edie and their rat nest really looked like! Simply click here.