Suzy Eddie Izzard

Believe Me, the memoir, is such a treat if you're a fan of Eddie Izzard! I'm sure the physical book is great, I wouldn't know exactly, but I implore you to listen to the audiobook version if you have a choice. The heart of Eddie Izzard's comedy is his niche brand of humor coupled with his signature verbal delivery—vocal riffing, pauses, and non-verbal cues you can practically hear. You'd only get a sense of this from the physical book, but you'll get it in spades with the audiobook.

It was show more sometime in the summer of 2000 when I was at a party and the host queued up a VHS tape of "Dress to Kill," Eddie's Emmy-winning stand-up show. (Note: This would have been before it won the Emmy by a month or so.) That night was the first time I ever heard of Eddie Izzard and I couldn't believe what I was watching. The humor was new and gut-wrenchingly funny and unlike anything I'd seen up to that point. I laughed for the rest of the night and quoted what I could remember for months. I eventually purchased my own copy from eBay. And the rest is history.

For me personally, one of the more resonant sections is Part 2, The Wilderness Years, and specifically, the chapter called "The Streets of London." My two favorite takeaways here are how, despite other reasonable alternatives, Eddie Izzard kept at. This is where he learned stamina. My other favorite moment is when he decided to try solo performing. He says that his whole life he never thought of himself as a solo performer, and then in a six month stretch he changed his mindset and made the switch. Brilliant. I think sometimes we hold on too tightly to ideas we consider lifelong goals. Things change, and we change. It's good to recognize the seismic life shifts when they are right in front of you.

If you're a fan of Eddie Izzard, go read or listen to this book. If you've never heard of him, YouTube. show less

This is a really delightful autobiography. In the audio book version and read by Izzard, done later than the print version. Izzard reflect back on his earlier recollections and goes on frequent and even lengthy new ad lib "footntoe" excursions adding to and amplifying details in the book. All done energetically and earnestly, this has the feel of a performance, not mere narration. I was surprised there is nothing about Valkyrie while there is so much about his successfully initiated film show more career with Castles in the Sky and other films. There is much about his mother's early passing, coming out as a transvestite, dealing with dyslexia, learning to fly, performing stand-up and as a street act, and running marathons. show less

I have read a lot of celeb autobiographies over the years and I was pleasantly surprised to find this wasn't the typical fluff piece. The book definitely has humorous stories throughout but for me the real strengths of the book are when Eddie writes about the death of his mother and deciding to live life openly as a transgender person. I couldn't help but tear up when he wrote about learning that his mother used to call him Edward. Given his strong work ethic, it is obvious that he put a lot show more of time and effort to be as openly candid as possible in the hopes of inspiring others.

Thank you First To Read for sending me a free advanced digital copy of this book! I knew very little about Eddie prior to reading this book but I walked away with genuine respect for him as an entertainer and as a human being. show less

Believe Me, the memoir of cult British comedian Eddie Izzard, begins with him recounting his memories of his mother's death from cancer when he was just six years old. He says that it was the defining event of his life, the thing that's shaped his approach to his career, to his relationships, to faith, the one big, unexpected loss that he's never quite overcome. And I believe that, because while the first chapters of Believe Me are honest and painful and lovely, Izzard retreats emotionally show more for the rest of the book. He's quite honest and upfront about the things that he does thereafter, but there's markedly less about how he felt at the time. This isn't helped by the fact that Izzard (or his ghost-writer? There is a "with" credit in the acknowledgements) didn't quite manage the trick of transferring his often rambling comedic voice to the page. In his act, the digressions feel charming and spontaneous, but here they often give the feeling of being trapped with a bore at a social event (gosh, wow, yes, getting your own pilot's license sounds pretty time-consuming!).

I also feel uncomfortable about raising this as a cis person, but I found it weird the way Izzard continually conflated being a transvestite and being transgender throughout the book, and referred to "transgender" as his "sexuality." Gender and sexuality, of course, aren't synonyms for one another. Maybe he just felt that these terms would be more familiar to the average reader than "genderqueer" or "gender non-conforming"? My suspicion, though, based on how he characterises his preferred method of learning elsewhere (little patience for learning from others, wants to just figure out a way that works for himself) that he's probably just not read much about the experiences of other people who don't occupy normative positions on the gender and/or sexuality spectrum.

A more minor fact-checking irritation, but one that stood out just as much to this medievalist: please don't hook an entire chapter around a metaphor that's all about how people five hundred years ago didn't know that the world was round, and that you'd be burnt at the stake as a heretic if you claimed that the world was anything other than flat. Medieval people knew the world was round, geocentrism wasn't dependent on that! show less