No Room for Secrets (2004)

Joanna Lumley is stunningly beautiful, was a model, a very accomplished actress, a hilariously-funny comedian (Absolutely Fabulous http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/abfab) and a very successful animal and human rights activist and is in fact considered a National Treasure in Nepal since she won the Gurkhas the right to settle in the UK after service in the British Army.

You would think that with all this material she would have written a really interesting book, but it wasn't. The structure, of going room by room in a house and using that and the objects within it as a jumping-off point for relating events in her life was soft, more suited to one of the people called 'celebrities' who really haven't done anything much except employ PR companies to get their picture everywhere. The fact that she seemed to be terribly nice and no one ever said a bad word to her or did her wrong is also soft. A drop of the hard stuff, a little gall, a squeeze of acid brightens up an otherwise bland dish, and so it is with a biography. Mind, it would be good serialised in a woman's magazine illustrated by Patsy Joanna dressed impossibly well showing us around her house.

But I'm not sorry she can't write particularly well, she'd be perfect if she could and then I'd have to hate her!

( )

Eschewing the usual biographical style, Lumley takes us on a tour of her house, stopping in each room to tell stories about the mementos and memories invoked. This works well on the whole, but is disrupted by short Q&A sections with the questions asked by a voice on behalf of the reader.
Like Lumley the writing is jolly hockey sticks and fun, but although we do get a good sense of her personality and enthusiams she reveals little of her real life and virtually no family details thus continuing to protect their privacy. Coyly she suggests she will write a further proper autobiography ...
Interesting but bring on the full monty! ( )