Comedian, screenwriter, presenter, author and podcaster, David Baddiel has written a searingly honest, funny and moving family memoir which exposes his mother’s idiosyncratic sex life and his father’s dementia to the same affectionate scrutiny.
Having escaped extermination by fleeing Nazi Germany as a child, David’s mother was desperate to make her life count; this took the form of a passionate, decades-long affair with a golfing memorabilia salesman. David’s detailing of the affair – including golf memorabilia and eye-popping erotic writings - leads to the inescapable conclusion that Sarah Baddiel was a cross between Jack Niklaus and Erica Jong.
As Baddiel investigates his family’s past, his father’s memories are fading; dementia is making him moodier and more disinhibited, with a penchant for obscenity. Throughout the book comedy, poignancy and laughter transform the darkest of experiences into something redemptive.
My Family: The Memoir is David Baddiel’s candid examination of his childhood, family and memory offering a twisted love letter to his parents.
Devorah Baum is the author of three books, most recently On Marriage, and with Josh Appignanesi she is co-director of the films The New Man and Husband. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Granta, the Financial Times. She is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Southampton.