Maybe This Will Save Me

(Paperback)

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From filmmaker, writer, producer and actor Tommy Dorfman -- currently starring in Broadway's Romeo + Juliet -- comes a beautifully written, bracingly original memoir, structured through the profound revelations of a single tarot card reading, chronicling her troubled teen years, the highs and lows of her creative career, and her journey to self-acceptance.

'Tommy Dorfman has written a fascinating, innovative twist on memoir, a book that breaks new forms to produce flashing vignettes of insight while compiling a moving document on the process of becoming.' -- Torrey Peters, national bestselling author of Detransition, Baby

On a hot summer day, twenty-eight-year-old Tommy Dorfman was enjoying a beautiful outing on a boat. But inside she felt unmoored. After a lifetime of confusion, she'd finally gained clarity around her gender and had begun to transition. But there were still parts of herself she'd locked away, elements of her story that she needed, for the first time, to fully confront. She sought guidance in a tarot deck, using it as a tool to make sense of her life up until that point.

Maybe This Will Save Me, Dorfman's spellbinding debut memoir, is structured through the cards of that tarot pull. The youngest of five children, she grappled with her own identity from an early age and spent her teenage years numbed by drugs and alcohol. At the same time, she harbored dreams of creative stardom and a desire to make herself seen. But the path, at times, had felt impossible.

Charting her early struggles in theater, her rise to fame in 13 Reasons Why, her hard-fought journey to sobriety, and the relationships that shaped her, Dorfman's luminously written, bracingly honest memoir reintroduces us to a writer who stands alongside Michelle Zauner, Jennette McCurdy, and Maggie Nelson in her visionary scope and craft.

'Tommy Dorfman is as funny as she is self-aware, as bold as she is beautiful, and has turned her remarkably specific life into something wildly universal. This collection will ask you to reckon with what it means to define yourself in a culture hell bent on defining you -- required reading for anyone who has ever rejected the story others wrote for them in order to write their own, and for anyone who wants to but doesn't have the tools yet.' -- Lena Dunham

Author Bio

Tommy Dorfman is an Atlanta-born Brooklyn-based writer, director, and actor. Her debut feature film, I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST, premiered at SXSW in 2024 and will be theatrically distributed in 2025. As an actor she made her Broadway debut is Sam Gold's Romeo and Juliet at Circle in the Square in 2024, and is known best for her work in Netflix's 13 Reasons Why. Her production company, Down the Line, launched in 2024 and is focused on shining a light on various human experiences not yet told in film, television, and theater. She holds a BA from Fordham University, is the recipient of a GLAAD Award, and loves being gay. This is her first book.