CELEBRITY memoirs should, much like unattended packages, be approached with extreme caution. They're usually a desperate attempt to keep the writer in the spotlight for another five minutes, or self-aggrandising whinges.
Dawn French's Dear Fatty i
s a rarity in that it commits neither of these sins. Throughout nearly 400 pages of warm remembrance, she comes across as so genuine and unpretentious that even when she's complaining about the price of celebrity she manages to do so in a manner which doesn't come across as remotely self-serving. That's quite an achievement.
French writes well, her prose as bright and amusing as you might expect. Self-deprecating yet never self-pitying, irreverent yet never truly cynical, she comes across as a woman genuinely at ease with herself.
"Oh, but all that 'fat but fun' business is clearly a defence mechanism to compensate for her expansive girth!" you might well bluster. French, however, briskly dismisses such presumptions (nobody's fool, she's well aware of the patronising inference of the supposed compliment "she has such a pretty face").
Although she delivers an unsparing description of her physical idiosyncrasies ("I'd love to run and still see ahead on every other stride," she notes wistfully), she maintains that she really does enjoy her body, and I see no reason to disbelieve her. She gets this weighty business out of the way early, suggesting that it's less interesting to her than it is to others.
Instead, that title – although it could be viewed as an affectionate self-assessment – is actually her nickname for longstanding comedy partner Jennifer Saunders (because she's the thinner one, you see), who's just one of the many beloved confidantes French addresses directly throughout a book arranged semi-chronologically as a series of open letters.
Although this device sputters somewhat awkwardly at times, it more often than not allows French the opportunity to write with unadorned candour, no more so than during the missives she writes to her late father. As she explains in her introduction, her book is partly a cathartic attempt to tell him about everything she's experienced and achieved since he committed suicide when she was just 19.
These heartfelt paeans to this evidently lovely yet troubled man form the emotional backbone of her story. French never demands that we feel her pain, begging for neither pity nor applause. Instead, she writes with an honesty that never feels disingenuous.
One of the most affecting passages occurs during a letter to her and Lenny Henry's adopted daughter, Billie, in which she recalls her dad administering an adoring pep talk. His sparkling words of encouragement, telling the teenage French how beautiful and special she was, instilled a sense of self-worth which has buoyed her ever since. What should come across as monstrously sentimental is instead written with such sincere affection it could tickle even the most arid tear ducts.
If, like me, you're a keen student of comedy, you'll be disappointed that her involvement with the seminal Comic Strip troupe isn't explored until roughly 100 pages before the end. It's not that sort of book, I suppose.
French's chronicle is undoubtedly overlong but she is engaging company overall, and at her best she writes about heartbreak and elation with such grace that her book is impossible to dislike. As a hymn to the preciousness of life, Dear Fatty sings sweeter than most.
• Books Editor David Robinson selects a book for review every Monday.
The full article contains 587 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
