Review
'A great memoir of a strange childhood. "Just let me read you this bit" funny.'
(Frank Cottrell Boyce )'Sayle shares with [Alan] Bennett the genius for making the mundane fascinating'
(The Times )'If the result is like his other books, it will have a moral centre, there'll be bleak bits - and it will be very funny indeed.' (Independent on Sunday )
'The brilliant satires on modern life of Alexei Sayle (the only comedian worth his salt as a novelist) are contemporary gems.'
(Tim Lott, Independent )'Being able to wrap up a big moral conundrum with the guise of a fizzing entertainment is a considerable gift...it is wonderfully entertaining and tells us a lot about what it is like to live in 21st century Britain.'
(Jonathan Coe, Guardian on Overtaken )'It's not like other comedians' memoirs. It's funny.'
(Guardian )'Sayle's book has charm and substance, both as memoir and history.' (TLS )
'this enormously clever comedian is already an established novelist and his childhood was as strange and fascinating as any fiction' (The Times )
Review
Product Description
Alexei Sayle was born in Liverpool on the day egg rationing came to an end.
His family ate salad.
They read the Soviet Weekly.
They travelled on transcontinental trains, and in the back of futuristic limousines.
They saw Communism in action and ate strange smelling sausages.
His mother was very keen on boiled eggs and the Moscow State Circus.
Teachers were scared of her.
His father was a union leader who made friends wherever he went.
He thought he was fluent in Esperanto.
Alexei became a member of the CzechoslovakianYoung Pioneers.
Sometimes he was bored and other times confused.
He thought he might be a great athlete, or maybe a famous artist.
He spent a lot of time inventing complex explanations for the bizarre behaviour of grown-ups.
Slowly it dawned on him that telling stories was a good way of making sense of his perplexing world.
