Lena Dunham on her memoir 'Famesick' and the intense bond between 'Girls' co-stars

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4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2026

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Lena Dunham shot the pilot for the HBO series Girls at age 24. Quickly, she was launched into the creative spotlight but the author says she was not prepared for “everything that came with it.” In her new memoir Famesick, Dunham recounts the “Wild West” of the 2010s, which included her rapid creative education, chronic health issues, and intense bonds with her Girls co-stars. In today’s episode, she tells Wild Card’s Rachel Martin about being welcomed into, and stung by, the cultural conversation of this time period and her creative partnership with castmate Adam Driver.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Melissa Adwarnie, and this is NPR's book of the day.
0:06.3	Lena Dunham got famous more than a decade ago for creating and starring in the HBO show,
0:11.8	Girls, about 20-something women trying to figure out how to be in the world.
0:17.6	In her latest memoir, FamSick, she similarly grapples with how to be in the world in a way
0:23.3	that feels honest and creative without letting that openness and vulnerability turn into a liability.
0:30.1	She spoke with NPR's Rachel Martin on the Wildcard podcast.
0:43.9	We're going to pull out of the game and talk about your book, FAMSick.
0:46.1	It's just a wonderful read.
0:49.7	So let's get into some of the themes in it. First, the time band, because this is about a particular decade, right?
0:55.6	It is.
0:56.0	It is.
0:56.7	So the book basically goes, the book basically goes from 2009 to 2020.
1:05.7	But it really focuses on the kind of period between 2010 and 2000.
1:10.0	It's sort of like there's a little precursor in 2009, a little coda in 2021,
1:15.2	but it's really about that decade between, it's really about, what do we call
1:18.9	2010 to 2020?
1:20.7	Was it the, it's not the aughts.
1:22.4	What do we call that?
1:24.2	I don't know.
1:25.5	A nightmare?
1:26.7	Do we call it a nightmare, Rachel? I think that's the
1:31.8	personal health. No, it's about those years, which did have a lot of magic in them and a lot of
	...

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