Memoirs Of An Unfit Mother [Paperback]

Anne Robinson's most recent public persona--the hardened battleaxe of television's The Weakest Link--is but a very small part of this quizmistress; Memoirs Of An Unfit Mother will most likely change your perceptions of the star. This book is a good read, but not a comfortable one. It's interesting: a saga-style across-the-generations tale of the Robinson clan. Of course, as a long-standing journalist before she hit the TV big time, Robinson's written style ensures the pages turn quickly. Memoirs of An Unfit Mother reads like a deposition for the defence of Anne Robinson, by Anne Robinson. It's hard to tell how many prospective readers know much of her life before the consumer TV programme Watchdog, so the author's decision to lay down hard facts about her alcoholism, the demise of a troubled marriage, blind ambition and the subsequent loss of custodial rights to her daughter Emma is risky.

Certainly, there have been hard lessons learnt. Which reader cannot sympathise with the empty dread a mother must feel when a child is taken away? The desperate loneliness? The horror of being judged as a failed parent? Sad things have certainly happened. But Robinson¹s reasoning--that the same would not happen to a hard-drinking workaholic man--only half helps her case for public support. It is difficult to empathise with someone who equates herself with Margaret Thatcher at every turn since the 1970s. Someone who recognises greed as a good point. And someone who seems to take great pride in telling how her husband was derided by colleagues when she became his boss. Readers who remember "Auntie Annie" from Watchdog may be shocked by her--perhaps self-protectively--hardened heart. Those who believe the hype for TV's Mrs Nasty are also mistaken--there aren't many intended wrongs here. Instead, Anne Robinson has laid herself bare, in an appeal to public opinion that she's been wronged by the system. Maybe she has. All in all, Memoirs of an Unfit Mother is worth reading, and worth learning from. It's all down here in black and white, but it is the grey areas in between which hold the intrigue. --Helen Lamont --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A cracking, unsentimental good read..love her or loathe her, Robinson has produced a book that revolutionises the celebrity autobiography (THE OBSERVER )

Devastating, original, self-lacerating, glittering with anger and thwarted maternal love...the book, like Robinson herself, is a combustable mixture of ferocity and vulnerability (DAILY TELEGRAPH )

Robinson is no heroine- at least of all in her own eyes...but she is admirable. (THE SPECTATOR )

It's a brilliant read, and a lesson to would-be-showbiz blog writers. (DAILY MAIL )

* The extraordinary roller-coaster story of Anne Robinson's life from alcoholism and a vicious custody battle for her daughter - which haunts her to this day - to her triumphant fight back. * A brave and remarkable book by a woman at the height of her career.

Anne Robinson's mother was a cross between Robert Maxwell and Mother Teresa. When Anne became a young reporter in Fleet Street, her mother, a wealthy market trader, bought her a mink coat and told her to have a facial once a month. But Anne Robinson's early success almost ended in her destruction. A doomed marriage was followed by a secret custody battle for her two-year-old daughter, Emma. 'Is it true?' her husband's barrister demanded in court, 'you once said you'd rather cover the Vietnam War than vacuum the sitting room?' A shocking, funny, poignant, honest account of three generations of women, Anne's formidable mother, Anne and her daughter Emma. Plus Anne's downfall. The shame of the years after the custody battle, Anne's alcoholism. And the triumph of returning to take a second go at life. And making it work.

Famous newspaper columnist. The first woman to regularly edit a national newspaper. Watchdog more than doubled its audience after Anne Robinson joined it, getting sit-com ratings. The Weakest Link attracted the largest number of daytime viewers in the history of television.