From all the press, and now this book, it seems to be true that Liza Minnelli has lived her life, on and off stage, at full volume. It’s proved in this memoir – which is hilariously “as told to Michael Feinstein”, while two journalists, Josh Getlin and Heidi Evans, are credited with the nuisance task of actually writing it. Only Liza.

Nevertheless, despite this unusual distancing from the coalface, that unmistakably and endlessly imitable shooshy-zhuzhy voice is channelled with crackling energy into a book that is less a chronological recounting of an extraordinary life and more an intimate monologue delivered from the prone position on a dressing room sofa after yet another triumphant performance. The result is a book that is messy, magnetic and unmistakably Minnelli.

What makes it extra compelling is its inability to corral her into a tidy narrative. Minnelli leans into the contradictions that have always defined her. She was the child of real Hollywood royalty (Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli) who longed for normalcy; the shy girl who became a stage-devouring force; the woman who could command a stadium yet struggled with her own private world. She writes...