Dawn French is a household name in Britain and to those who watch BBC Canada. She played the Anglican minister Geraldine in The Vicar of Dibley for 10 years, which is tuppence compared to how long she’s been in the comedy biz with her buddy Jennifer Saunders (she of Absolutely Fabulous fame, and to whom the ‘Fatty’ of the title refers - who is anything but). Younger audiences may know Ms. French from her cameo as “the fat lady portrait” in the third Harry Potter film, and lately she has been seen in the series’ Jam & Jerusalem and Lark Rise to Candleford. In this most unusual memoir, however, she writes very little very about her own stardom, although plenty of pictures show just how broad her career has been. Still, she keeps the name-dropping at a tantalizing minimum, and instead focuses on the people in her life who have influenced and inspired her along the way. Each chapter is actually a letter to one of those people – her parents, Fatty, various friends met along the way, past crushes, her B.F. (best friend, whose name is not revealed), her husband and daughter – and each letter recalls hilarious anecdotes, cringe-worthy moments, and even imaginary fantasies (i.e. the kiss with George Clooney - not so imaginary, but the after-affect was). A perpetually overweight RAF-brat who moved around lot and developed her sense of humour to make friends and not alienate people, her seemingly privileged life has not been tragedy-free by a long-shot. However, she avoids being maudlin by introducing these episodes in a very gentle way, chapters before she gets into the nitty-gritty of the circumstances. More like a peek into someone’s diary, Dear Fatty is likely to leave one tearful as much from laughing at Dawn French’s ebullient self as from the tender revelations of her life. It is the best memoir I have read in a very long time.
Click here to reserve your copy of her memoir, or here to watch her in action on Youtube.
In the Stratford Gazette on January 9, 2009

What’s summer without a large dish of, well, dish? And who can dish it out better than the self-professed “gayest man he knows”, Leslie Jordan? Leslie Jordan is probably best known as the campy “Beverly Leslie” from television’s Will & Grace, and claims to have fallen ‘right out of the womb to land smack dab in his mama’s high heels’. In his memoir Mr. Jordan reveals how he always knew he was ‘different’, but that his grandparents and mother never questioned him during his southern Baptist youth. He also paints a tender – yet brutal - picture of his time as a hospice volunteer with Linn House in West Hollywood at the height of the AIDS crisis and hysteria in the early 1990’s, and his commitment to the Trevor Project, a national GLTB helpline. There is plenty of upbeat celebrity chat about his times on-stage (like the time he was a Ferengi with a Tennessee accent on Star Trek) - and off-stage (like the time he shared a prison cell he with Robert Downey Jr. - which turned out to be a lot more poignant than it seems). Throughout the autobiography the elfin maven speaks frankly (and often graphically) about getting started in “the biz”, and his many uphill battles with drugs, sex-addiction and self-loathing. But although some of his stories are harrowing, Mr. Jordan never sounds self-deprecating; rather his anecdotes are full of self-awareness and even better, self-acceptance. The result is a very readable memoir with an atmosphere of gratitude and grace that is quite inspiring.
Click here to find this book in the Library catalogue.