Just Ignore Him
Alan Davies as a child
Front cover
AuthorAlan Davies
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreMemoir
PublisherLittle, Brown and Company
Publication date
1 September 2020
Media typePrint
Pages288
ISBN9781408713297

Just Ignore Him is a 2020 memoir by the British comedian Alan Davies, detailing his early childhood.

Background

Alan Davies is a British comedian, known for his acting in Jonathan Creek and permanent role on the panel show QI.[1] Just Ignore Him was his second book, following My Favourite People And Me, 1978–88 (2009), which was republished as Teenage Revolution.[2][3] Davies later said of his first book that "all the things that mattered were missing". Davies worked on Just Ignore Him while pursuing a part-time MA in creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. He began the MA course in 2016, initially writing short stories about his life in the third person. At the end of his first year, he submitted for assessment a passage of writing which later became the chapter "Hands", with few changes needed.[4] Davies expressed an interest in writing a stand-up show about the material covered in the book.[1]

Davies consulted with friends about his plan for the book, some of whom asked if he was sure that he wanted the personal information within it to be public. He viewed the story as his and his mother's and wished for it to be told. In an interview with The Observer, Davies said that: "I also wanted to tell people they could talk about their own stories, even if they had never talked about them before".[4] Davies aimed for the book to be "a record to last a long time" and wanted his children to read it when they were older. Davies found it "very, very difficult" and not cathartic to write it.[1]

The book was announced in November 2019 and published in the United Kingdom by Little, Brown and Company on 1 September 2020.[4][5] Autumn is the most frequent book release period in the UK and the day and week in which Just Ignore Him was published were particularly busy due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.[6]

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Davies was reluctant to engage in press work for the book, wishing his audience to discover the nature of its subject matter through reading it. He wanted the mention of abuse to be omitted from publications prior to the book's release. His publishers did not communicate this to newspapers, at least in the case of his interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, who chose to publish details about the book's subject matter along with extracts from the interview where Davies explains why he did not want the details to be published.[1][7]

Synopsis

The book is about Davies' early childhood, including the death of his mother and sexual abuse by his father. It covers how these events affected him throughout his life.

Reception

Fiona Sturges of The Observer praised the book as "fiercely honest". Sturges described the book as mostly serious, though containing bleak humour, and found it "sometimes upsetting" and "more sad than angry".[3] Sturges later chose it as one of the best five celebrity memoirs of 2020, calling it "intimate" and "open-hearted".[8] The Sunday Times chose it as the best film and theatre book of 2020, in their list of "The 37 best books of 2020".[9] In his review for the publication, Jonathan Dean called it "Surely the bravest memoir of the year".[10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Dougary, Ginny (4 September 2020). "Actor Alan Davies on why he won't talk about 'the A-word'". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  2. ↑ Richardson, Jay (17 July 2020). "Richard Herring writes book about toxic masculinity". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  3. 1 2 Sturges, Fiona (11 September 2020). "Just Ignore Him by Alan Davies review – a life derailed by abuse". The Observer. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 Rogers, Jude (23 August 2020). "Alan Davies: 'I've become a huge enemy of silence and secrecy'". The Observer. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  5. ↑ Cowdrey, Katherine (15 November 2019). "Alan Davies to publish memoir with Little, Brown". The Bookseller. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  6. ↑ Flood, Alison (13 August 2020). "'It's a mega year!': book trade braces for autumn onslaught of major new titles". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  7. ↑ Carey, Gemma (22 October 2020). "I wrote a memoir about abuse. That doesn't mean you're entitled to every detail". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
  8. ↑ Sturges, Fiona (28 November 2020). "Best autobiography and memoirs of 2020". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  9. ↑ Millen, Robbie; Holgate, Andrew (28 November 2020). "The 37 best books of 2020: our top reads from every genre". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  10. ↑ Dean, Jonathan (29 November 2020). "Best film and theatre books of the year 2020". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 1 December 2020.

Further reading

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