Some Personal News

My next biography subject is...

Dear Back Row readers,

I’m taking a break from regular coverage today say: thank you. You have supported me so much since I launched this newsletter in late 2021. When I first started publishing Back Row, I was finishing my first biography, Anna: The Biography, which came out in 2022. Your support has enabled me, in the shrinking media industry, to continue doing what I love, which is writing and reporting, but also pulling back the curtain on various subjects and finding new ways to cover them.

Over the last three years, in the hours that I haven’t been writing this newsletter, I’ve been working on another book, which I’m thrilled to share with you now.

Thanks to YOUR support of Anna and Back Row, I’ve been able to write another biography about a woman who has, for better or worse, had a tremendous impact on culture: Gwyneth Paltrow.

On sale July 29, Gwyneth reveals details and insights from those who know her. It draws on interviews with more than 220 sources, including friends and colleagues from Goop and the entertainment world and beyond. It traces her rise as the daughter of a famous actress and producer, through elite private schools, to an acting career she seemed destined for, and her pivot away from that career to start the controversial wellness and lifestyle brand Goop. The book covers a wide range of subjects including nepotism, the changing media industry, the celebrity brand boom, the celebrity-fashion industrial complex, the evolution of Hollywood, the rise of wellness as a massive for-profit business that became part of American politics, medical misinformation, and much more.

Like Anna, this book took more than three years of late nights and long hours to research and write, and a lot of hard work (actually, it may have been even harder to pull off than Anna). You have all been so generous to support me as a journalist and author, and I’m asking for your help once more by pre-ordering Gwyneth: The Biography.

If you have a favorite local indie bookstore, you can also pop in there or give them a call to pre-order.

Not only does your pre-order validate the work that I do to tell the stories that aren’t getting told and say the things that aren’t getting said about culture, fashion, and more, it also supports the genre of biography, which is typically reserved for male subjects.

I will share details of publication in non-U.S. territories as it becomes available.

Again, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for making all this possible. I can’t wait to share more with you about the book and the process of writing it as publication nears.

xo

Amy