Amber Tamblyn's Dark Sparkler: an unsettling meditation on early fame

The former child star performed her new book of poems with Yo La Tengo in New York, taking a gimlet-eyed aim at the pressures Hollywood places on women

“A child star actress is a double-edged dildo,” Amber Tamblyn told a surprised audience at the Housing Works bookstore in New York this week.

“Yeah, I said that,” she added, breaking out of her reading for just a moment. Tamblyn is used to upending the expectations of her audience. Now 31, she is still best known as an actor who got her start in the mid-90s, first on the American soap opera General Hospital, then going on to a series of generic teen roles in films like The Ring and The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. But all the while she wrote poetry too, publishing her first poem aged 12 in the San Francisco Chronicle. Her work has appeared in a number of indie literary publications all over the US.