More Fool Me

April 20, 2015
“There is nothing very appealing about show business memoirs,” comedian Fry writes in the first sentence of this new installment of his autobiography, which picks up where The Fry Chronicles left off. With canny accuracy, Fry illustrates his point in what is ultimately a meandering, pedantic memoir that covers about a decade of his life. Fry found himself at the height of his success as a comedian and actor in his early 30s, rushing from party to party, diving into cocaine addiction and sex. In one lucid moment, however, Fry comes to himself and recognizes the line between wisdom and folly: “When I started taking coke my life was more or less perfect. I had enjoyed preposterous success.” Fry does veer off his path momentarily to recall his meeting with Princess Diana, who revealed her secret love of a particularly naughty television show, as well as to introduce his sister, Jo, who became his superlative personal assistant. Looking back over his diaries, Fry wonders about his folly as a young man and where his life might have led if he had not partied so heavily. In the end, though, Fry imparts little wisdom about himself.

April 15, 2015
Fry brings his life story into the next decade in this pleasing follow-up to The Fry Chronicles (2012) and other books of memoir. It's not that he's self-absorbed but rather that the author has packed plenty of lives into less than 60 years: intellectual and criminal, genius and addict, beset by countless maladies but always game to wander off onto mountaintop or into jungle in the service of adventure. Viewers of BBC America will now know him as the host of QI, fans of the Hobbit films will know him as a gold-crazed lakeside doge, and fans with longer memories will remember him from A Bit of Fry and Laurie (with House's Hugh Laurie) and other confections-to all of which Fry adds that he's a "representative of madness, Twitter, homosexuality, atheism, annoying ubiquity and whatever other kinds of activity you might choose to associate with me." With so much to tell, it's a touch disappointing that Fry drifts from coherent narrative to sometimes less-than-scintillating diary entries. There's also perhaps a bit more about the agonies and ecstasies of cocaine than one might care to read ("As my prosperity rose my ability to acquire higher-quality cocaine increased commensurately....Better purity meant less diarrhea, nasal bleeding and nausea")-though that was the late 1980s and early '90s for you, a time of excess and abandon that today's grim austerity makes all the more nostalgiaworthy. Fry, a gifted writer with a perfect sense of comic timing and anecdote-spinning, name-drops to beat Jim Harrison, but what a list of names he has to drop: from Emma Thompson to Alastair Cooke, P.G. Wodehouse, John Mills, Christopher Hitchens, and the Prince of Wales. If you're a fan of Oscar Wilde, whom Fry has portrayed on stage and screen, then by near definition you'll be a fan of this writer and this book. Lots of fun-and readers who have been following all along will be wanting more, and soon.

COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2015
Comedian, actor, novelist, and director Fry's honestly worn, familiar face smiles sincerely from this memoir's cover, making readers feel he has nothing to hidehe'll here bare all he hasn't uncovered in The Fry Chronicles (2012). Indeed, he is up front about his (now ended) cocaine habit, which formed a part of his life at a time when he rigorously did voice-overs in the mornings, wrote radio and TV sketches (and more) in the afternoons, made appearances in between, and then had dinner and partied with friends and notables. Fry notes, looking back, How I managed to do so much working and so much playing without keeling over stone dead I cannot imagine. The latter half of the book is his 1993 diary (unrevised but occasionally annotated for clarification), and it forms a mesmerizing cadence and backdrop to his charmed and charmingly told life. Fry's funny stories and the many photographs reproduced throughout complement how incredibly accomplished he is and how much he seemingly effortlessly produces. Fry is impeccably cheery. This memoir makes one laugh, but it also inspires.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)