Humour by Rehana Munir: The irresistible charms of the celebrity memoir

From offering cheap thrills to deep insights, a good tell-all does the trick

I’m fresh off two celeb memoirs, both of which I’ve read to distract myself from an unbearably dark novel and demanding scientific tome. The first, Friends, Lovers and The Big Terrible Thing, explored the seamier side of actor Matthew Perry, better known as Chandler Bing from Friends. The second, Sultan, revisited the career of Wasim Akram, former Pakistani left-arm pacer with god-like talent. There’s so much I’ve learned; there’s so much I wish I hadn’t. “Could I be more conflicted?” to channel my inner Chandler.

The one with Julia Roberts

I learned, for instance, that Matthew Perry’s mother, Suzanne Langford, was the press secretary to former Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau, the father of current PM, Justin. And that Julia Roberts agreed to the Friends cameo on the condition that they integrate her into the Chandler storyline—the prelude to the two stars dating. And that Perry was carted off to rehab straight after Chandler’s wedding scene with Monica, one of countless such grim incarcerations. I swooned over Akram’s first meeting with Imran Khan, at Sydney airport—the first cracklings of that fabled chemistry, nurtured by the physics of reverse swing. I read fondly about the Pakistan cricket team listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s Allah Hoo on a boom box while bowling in the nets before the 1992 World Cup final—and then in the dressing room after winning it. And I lamented the tragic loss of Akram’s wife, Huma, and his post-career struggles with cocaine.

Celebs are quasi-mythic characters even in this post-wonderment world. And so, we need a constant supply of private confessions to deflate public personas. Harry and Meghan do so much of the heavy lifting, those poor altruists. But not everyone gets a six-part Netflix series. A printed memoir is the next best thing.

Candour, inspiration and surprise

Andre Agassi’s page-turning autobiography, Open, written with assistance from J R Moehringer, was astonishing in its candour. What has stayed with me is the image of a troubled young boy who never wanted to play tennis. And a Hollywood ending where Agassi and wife Steffi Graf play a tennis game seemingly invented for the readers’ edification. (I’m not complaining.) Often, it will inspire. Michelle Obama’s Becoming begins with her listening to the piano lessons being conducted in the apartment downstairs—“the sounds of striving”. A quality that has held her in good stead through an unusually rich life. Sometimes, it disarms, like Muriel Spark’s Curriculum Vitae’s opening. The author describes her childhood in Scotland, speaking tantalisingly about the baking of bread and cutting of butter slabs. Her novels, in contrast, involve the baking of devious plots and cutting of human tissue.

I dived into Regrets, None, Dolly Thakore’s memoir (written with Arghya Lahiri), expecting one thing and left with so much more: the rich, layered, often surprising subtext of a life that shuttles between geographies both physical and emotional. And in Naseeruddin Shah’s And Then One Day: A Memoir I went in expecting straight talk and intensity, and got humour as a bonus. A true Shah of storytelling, whatever the format.

Nobels and the ignoble

As a 16-year-old, I was introduced to a very unusual memoir. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character (as told to Ralph Leighton) is the first instalment of the remembrances of the Nobel-winning physicist who inspired generations of maths brains at Caltech. A good-looking, irreverent genius. Yes, please! On revisiting sections of the book now, I’m horrified by the casual and shocking sexism in his anecdotes. Then there was VS Naipaul’s confession in Patrick French’s The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul. “It could be said that I killed her,” Naipaul says about his psychological abuse of wife Patricia. But then, we expect cruelty from this gifted writer with a bigoted world view.

Mining one’s own life and memories is finally being recognised as a highly literary pursuit, no matter what your gender. The latest winner of the literature Nobel, French author Annie Ernaux, is known for autobiographical narratives that women writers have traditionally been criticised for. With a little help from professional co-authors, the celeb memoir, too, can offer more than just cheap thrills. Akram, for instance, chose Aussie cricket writer Gideon Haigh. Well played, Waz.

Follow @rehana_munir on Twitter and Instagram

From HT Brunch, January 7, 2023

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