Book Review: Dear Fatty by Dawn French

Dear Fatty is the autobiography of British comedian and actress Dawn French. It is written as a series of letters to her loved ones, each depicting an important part of French’s life. Best known for her comedic roles in The Vicar of Dibley and French and Saunders, French has also cleverly inserted various jokes addressed to Fatty (Jennifer Saunders) to lighten the mood after a long or emotional chapter.

What became clear to me as I read French’s story was her ability to evoke different emotions to the reader. I laughed as she explained her encounter with the Queen Mother. I appreciated my own boyfriend as she thanked her husband Lenny for their joyous marriage (I wonder if she still feels the same way now they are divorced. My friend A has just come back to Australia from the United Kingdom and said the divorce was a huge story in the British media). I felt ashamed as she described the racism she witnessed between a taxi driver and an Indigenous person during a trip to Adelaide, South Australia.

However, the most gut-wrenching feeling for me was overwhelming sadness as French outlines her father’s decision to commit suicide when she was 19 years old. Dawn writes to her father about this life-changing experience, taking up two whole pages with questions that will go unanswered. Consequently, most of the letters in the second half of the book are written to French’s father, and detail how she became one of today’s best-known female comedians.

Throughout Dear Fatty, it is easy to get a sense of who French really is. My previous thoughts of her as a warm, bubbly, generous, hilarious person have proven to be correct, yet I have now added a tiny touch of tragedy to her persona.

I am looking forward to reading French’s new fictional book A Tiny Bit Marvellous.

4 out of 5 stars.