This "wincingly funny" memoir by the comedian David Baddiel is an account of growing up in a north London suburb with two "distant, distracted and erratic" parents, said Nick Duerden in The i Paper.
Baddiel's father, Colin, was a misanthropic research scientist who, upon losing his job at Unilever, set up a market stall selling Dinky Toys. His mother, Sarah, was a "flamboyant damsel hoping that others might see her distress". The pair didn't seem to like each other much (though young David would regularly overhear their noisy sex) and Sarah compensated by having an "enduring dalliance" with a "pipe-smoking golf enthusiast" named David White.
This affair, which lasted some 30 years, was "obsessive and barely concealed", said Tim Adams in The Observer. White was a "big cheese in the golfing memorabilia world" and, after meeting him, Sarah became so fascinated by him that she set up her own memorabilia company. She also left letters from White scattered around the house. Outwardly, Colin (pictured with his family) remained oblivious of his wife's "semi-secret life" – though Baddiel speculates that his repressed knowledge of it contributed to his "explosive irritability".
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Baddiel has told much of this story before, said Fiona Sturges in The Guardian: his 2016 stage show, "My Family: Not the Sitcom", "revolved around his mother's infidelity". But in this memoir, he "draws out the comedy" as he reflects on his parents with greater nuance and detail. While he dances "around the edge of decency" (in an email to White, which he shares, Sarah announces "MY CLITORIS IS ON FIRE!!!!!"), it is the job of "effective memoirists" to mix "the good, the terrible, the humiliating and the ridiculous". Baddiel has ultimately "done his parents proud" by giving us the "full, unvarnished picture".
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