I like Eddie Izzard, he strikes me as someone who would be fun to have for a friend and after completing this autobiography the reader will feel as if you have gotten to know the real person, Eddie Izzard better. He is rather flamboyant on stage and screen (big or little screen) but this book takes you into his thoughts, dreams, ups and downs. He sometimes comes across as if confiding truths to the reader as a trusted friend, other times he seems to be self-analyzing himself. He is a mix of educated, worldly, possessing great savoir-faire, other times, you feel you want to give him a hug because he seems so vulnerable. I enjoyed learning about him as a person and his life as an ongoing adventure. I smile at his description of himself, he mentions more than once that he thinks he is a lesbian because while he is a transvestite and does love putting on makeup and heels he also prefers women and is not really all that into having affairs with men saying the majority of his relationships have been with women and he only sites a few of his hetero/lesbian(?) relationships with women in the book. He says he just likes to go with his mood to dictate how he dresses. Sometimes he feels like dressing like a male and sometimes he feels more feminine and puts on a dress or sometimes a kilt which he says can go either way. A fun and comedic person, a friend you could swap stories, lip gloss amd earrings with. A big hearted soul who is trying to learn as many languages as he can so that he can do his standup comedy in the language of the country he is performing in. A many faceted human being who has endured a lot, learned a lot and is very open about many extremely personal things. He tends to go all Madalyn Murray O’Hair throughout the book which was tedious because he goes off on tears and it will make you want to say to him, “I got it the first time you are an atheist.” But he protests so often and so hard that as a reader it made me think as was credited to Shakespeare “me thinks thou doth protest too much!” Is his ardent denial because he is angry that his mother was taken from him at such a young age? Upon which his father sent him and his brother immediately to boarding school? Is he coming to grips with his personhood and wants no retribution from an authority figure? There is a feeling throughout his musings that there is an underlying cause to this vehemence. But barring these rants I enjoyed the book even if he does get a little chatty and rambling off topic at times, he always throws in extra tidbits about his life during these mental strolls that will make you laugh and isn’t that what Eddie Izzard’s passion is? Making people laugh. While he loves acting and doing dramatic roles, his real love is standup comedy, could it be cathartic?
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