Starred review from April 24, 2023
Actor Grant (With Nails) delivers an excellent memoir that’s part journal, part love letter to his late wife, Joan Washington. Mostly, he chronicles his and Joan’s ups and downs across 38 years, from their meeting in 1982, when he hired her as a dialect coach to “iron out” his Swazi accent, to her cancer diagnosis, decline, and eventual death. He also peppers in witty gossip, including the time he met “his lifelong idol” Barbara Streisand, descriptions of his friendship with Melissa McCarthy (“Melissa is, in fact, morose, always late for work, never knows her lines, is inconsiderate, selfish, and we did not get along, at all,” he tells an audience, to “big laughs and an even bigger hug from her”), and a particularly endearing account of the time he accepted a role as the Spice Girls’ manager in Spice World to please his eight-year-old daughter. Though he doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges of caring for Joan during her illness or his grief after she died (“I feel and look like an old turtle without my shell, trying to navigate the world on my own, having lost my loving compass”), Grant’s tender recollections effectively conjure on the page the couple’s enduring connection. The result is a moving and entertaining celebration of life and love.
June 1, 2023
A memorial to a cherished wife. After emigrating from Swaziland to London in 1982, actor Grant met dialect coach Joan Washington and fell in love; in 1986, they married. A diary-keeper since childhood, the author draws on his candid entries to weave together an absorbing, moving chronicle of his deeply happy and long marriage; the miscarriages and premature birth of a daughter, who died the same day, and their joy when at last a successful pregnancy resulted in the birth of their beloved Olivia; the many highs of his acting career, including a Golden Globe Award and Oscar nomination; and the grueling 10 months between Joan's learning that she had stage 4 lung cancer and her death in September 2021. "If this illness has begun to teach us anything," Grant observed soon after the diagnosis, "it's that living in the moment, for the moment, is the most positive way forward." But that resolve was sorely tested as Joan's condition worsened and he and Olivia needed to attend to Joan's every need. An experimental drug gave them hope--until it failed. By August, he writes, "our night and day and night has tilted into a canyon of unease, doubt, and acute anxiety." Friends helped: Nigella Lawson sent delectable food; Camilla Bowles and Prince Charles each sent a note early on, and later Charles stopped by for an unexpected visit. Since both Grant and his wife had long careers in theater and movies, they were close to many members of the acting elite: Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson brought ice cream and sorbet; Ralph Fiennes sent a long, affectionate letter; Emma Thompson came for tea with her adopted son, Tindy; Gabriel Byrne sat at Joan's bedside, "plate-spinning philosophicals, anecdotage, and ruminations." In an appendix, Grant compiles tributes to Joan from a roster of notables, including Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Fiona Shaw, and Emily Mortimer. Ebullience and grief mark a touching memoir.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
June 1, 2023
Grant, a Swazi English actor known for film (Gosford Park, Can You Ever Forgive Me?) and television (Doctor Who, Downton Abbey) roles, has kept a diary since childhood, and this memoir consists of recent entries. He recounts the story of his life with Joan Washington, Scottish voice and dialect coach, through nearly 40 years of marriage and her final eight months with terminal lung cancer. This is not a typical celebrity memoir. When names are dropped, it is because they just happen to be a part of the author's world, and that includes some big names in the British film and theater community as well as one or two members of the royal family. Grant's prose is charming and witty but serious when the events described call for it. His story is often funny, more wistful than weepy, and all the more poignant when he focuses on some little thing that reminds him of his late wife. An engaging story of life, love, and grief that will resonate with anyone who has ever loved and lost.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
July 1, 2023
Grant's myriad of film performances, including Withnail and I and his Oscar-nominated role in Can You Ever Forgive Me, have made him a popular and prolific actor. Unfortunately, stardom does not cushion anyone from life's cruelties, as Grant's heartbreaking memoir proves. In 1982, Grant, newly arrived in London and determined to be an actor, signed up for an accent course at the Actors Centre with Joan Washington, a renowned dialect coach who had just been asked to coach cast members in Barbra Streisand's Yentl. A mutual attraction ensued, and Grant and Washington married in 1986. After 35 years of marriage, a daughter together, and stellar careers, Washington was diagnosed with terminal stage 4 lung cancer. As treatments proved ineffective and Washington's health deteriorated, the family had to grapple with the inevitable. Washington instructed her family to find the "pocketful of happiness" in every day. Grant does so with enormous dignity, affection, and unquenchable humor, supported by loyal friends. VERDICT An elegant exploration of the profundity of loss. While the memoir will appeal to Grant's many fans, it may also comfort those struggling with an impending or recent loss.--Penelope J.M. Klein
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