The Hollywood sections take away from the intensity of the book ... The woman in the book whom I could easily do without is … Barbra Streisand ... I could have done without all of that, because, like Richard E. Grant, I just wanted more of the feisty, unvarnished, irritable, generous, wise, unimpressed Joan Washington. You cannot read this book and not miss her very much.
The book is not so much a memoir as it is the anatomy of a love story and partnership ... An endearing read, A Pocketful of Happiness, gets progressively harder to digest emotionally as the illness marches to its inevitable conclusion. But it’s worthwhile all the same.
A brutal read ... Grant’s pain is still pushed right up against these pages ... Interspersing Grant’s account of Washington’s illness, though, are entertaining diary entries about his work ... Brutal, yes, but a necessary description of going behind the curtain and seeing what is pulling the ropes.
Grant pulls off a feat here. The title is twee but the content isn’t ... Grant is so likeable, heartfelt and open ... The way Grant writes about his bereavement leaves us shattered for him.
This territory is also, I think, somewhat uncomfortable for the reader, particularly since Grant pads out his narrative with glitzy memories of 2019 ... I think he wrote his book too soon, but I also see that he needed to do something, the gap in his life being so unimaginably huge, so very hard to bear.
Excellent ... 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.
