Look Back in Hunger

I love Jo Brand. She's down-to-earth, feisty, and always calls a spade a spade. Happily, unlike the autobiographies of some comics who come across completely differently on the page (Dawn French, I'm looking at you) this book abounds with Brand's deadpan humour and mischievous slant on life.

This is a simple, linear narrative, beginning with her childhood and sweet memories of growing up with two brothers, before moving on to the terrible teens when she became a bit of a wild child, breaking away from family life and heartily embracing the counterculture of the time. Moving from house to house, job to job, Brand has lived in all kinds of different places, and worked as a carer for physically and mentally disabled people before training show more as a psychiatric nurse. Finally, after several years working her way up the ranks at a psychiatric hospital, she at last branched out into her dream career - stand-up comedy.

What I really like about this book as an autobiography is the real every-woman feeling pervading the pages. It's the same style that draws women to her comedy, I think. She doesn't try to lay down every detail of her life, or go into gushing detail about people we don't know (Dawn French, that's you again) but instead picks out the memorable moments over the years, the things that have stuck with her - the kinds of moments we all remember ourselves. Blissful summer days as a child, amazing music gigs, injuries, near misses, bad behaviour, defining moments in her nursing career, the first time she went on stage to perform... She's also very candid about her less-than-wholesome but entirely ordinary experiences with drugs and alcohol, gently pointing out the negative consequences but never judging. I found her time as a psychiatric nurse quite fascinating, and as a manic depressive it gave me even more respect for the people who deal with mental health on the 'front line'.

Altogether this was an amusing, gentle, honest and breezy read, which engages with the reader by presenting a non-judgemental romp through a 'normal' but well-lived and interesting life. Brand comes across as the kind of person you'd have a great laugh with down the pub: funny and intelligent, with plenty of opinions and life stories to share. I loved it! Maybe I'll try one of her novels soon... show less

Look Back In Hunger by Jo Brand Imagine being stuck in a lift with Jo Brand. You tell your life story in thirty minutes and then she begins to tell hers.

Six hours later she finishes and you have heard all the details of her life. She has been candid and your head is swimming in details about people, places, dates, items of clothing and various states of inebriation. A kaleidoscopic story like a wash cycle which ends up with the Jo Brand that we all know stepping out of the machine. A story so improbable that it rings with the truth.

But having said that you have the feeling that you have heard the public version.

Short Ok read. I don't like stand up comedians in general but I've seen Jo Brand on Countdown and she always makes me laugh with her made up words. So this was picked up cheap at the local Lions Sale. Quite interesting, particularly the sections about her mental health nurse work. To my relief I didn't dislike her by the end although I'd still never go to her stand up show.

Not as belly laugh-filled as I'd expected, but still interesting, charming and in places very moving. The focus is on her pre-comedy career, delivered in her unmistakable laconic style. She's not big on picking over the past, so the book reads as a series of vignettes with a few random tangents here and there.

An interesting and well-written autobiography (which is more than I can say for many autobiographies). It may not be profound, but is thoughtful, sometimes very funny and a good read throughout. Jo Brand's story is particularly interesting insofar it seems not at all obvious from the facts of her early life that she would end up being the performer and writer that she is today.

I quite enjoyed this book. It was an easy read and as with the autobiographies of Stephen Fry , Dawn French & Michael McIntyre that I have also read you can tell there is no ghost author involved as their personalities leap out of every page - not always the case.
I think if I were to meet Jo as a person not a celebrity or comic we would get on.

I found Brand's nursing career stories very interesting, and she is obviously a lot more intelligent than I had previously given her credit for ... but I would have liked the story to continue, to learn more about her career as a stand up. Oh well, maybe a second volume will be coming ... here's hoping, because I was very engaged with her narrative.