Items related to The Smoking Diaries: The Year of the Jouncer
Synopsis
As a baby, Simon Gray discovered that he could move his carriage while still nestling inside it. "It was a complete mystery to the adult intelligences, how had he done it, if it was he who had done it, but if not he, who then and why? So the next afternoon they planted the pram in the usual spot, and stood over it, watching the baby lay there smiling or snivelling up at them, until it struck them that they should try observing the baby when unobserved by the baby, and they withdrew behind bushes and trees; and thus witnessed the swaying of the pram, then the juddering of the pram, then its slow, unsteady progress along the path, the movement accompanied by a low humming and keening sound from within that reminded them more of a dog than a human . . . jouncing was the word they used for it. I was a jouncer therefore." In these hilarious chronicles of triumph and disaster, Gray intertwines scenes from his adult and his child self to produce a brilliant and moving counterpoint of life’s unsteady progress.
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About the Author
Simon Gray is the author of more than 30 plays, including Butley, The Common Pursuit, and Cell Mates, as well as his memoirs Enter a Fox, Fat Chance, and The Year of the Jouncer.
From Publishers Weekly
About to celebrate his 66th birthday, Gray, the British author of more than 30 plays, including the forthcoming Broadway revival of Butley (which will star Nathan Lane), started writing this witty journal of passing time, missed opportunities and his personality quirks, with the underlying topic of his smoking three packs of cigarettes daily and the wheezing and dizziness that accompany his habit. He traces his romance with tobacco to the incessant smoking of his overaffectionate Mummy and emotionally distant Daddy, and to his savvy 1940s and '50s childhood spent as part of a girl-run kiddie gang in Montreal. Gray's funny vignettes introduce characters such as Mr. and Mrs. Alzheimer (he suffers from the disease; she, therefore, is an "Alzheimer widow"), and "schoolmaster floggers" Mr. Brown and Mr. Burn. While somberly noting the demise of his parents and several friends from smoking-relating cancer and emphysema, Gray keeps up a constant comedy routine about the British literary world, his claustrophobia in cars and trains, the TV series Law and Order and other random subjects. His memoir is a dark comedy, full of intimacy, limericks, wisdom and fun. Photos.
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- PublisherGranta Books
- Publication date2008
- ISBN 10 1847080553
- ISBN 13 9781847080554
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages282
- Rating
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